The Ninth Element
by Mmmmwwww
Summary: (Perhaps I should save the R rating until later. Whee, it's been TWO years since this fic got published!) One man's lustful search for power triggered a far greater plan, one that will eternally change eight souls...
1. Prologue

Disclaimer: This'll be the first and possibly only disclaimer. I do not own any of the Bloody Roar characters and I only own my own characters, including Agemo Krimagi, Shannon Tsunami, Norok, Agrimson, and et cetera.  
Author's Note: This is the re-write of the Prologue of the Ninth Element, to make things consistents with the later part of the story. Thanks to all of my friends and especially Tiger5913 for reminding me to start writing again even though I'm still punished! ^_^ ;; Sorry for making you guys waiting SO damn long!  
**  
The Ninth Element  
Prologue**  
  
The black-haired man stared forward, smirking. His aquatic green eyes scanned the high, flat circular room illuminated by the torches. The room's stone wall had engravings on them, with a three-headed dragon standing out the most. Right across the stone dragon was a doorway that was blocked by a line of five swordsmen. The leader looked at the middle of the room, running a hand through his black hair. A pattern was etched to the middle of the room, showing eight circles forming a larger circle rimmed with different colours. In the middle of the circles was a larger circle. Standing in the circles were eight priests wearing coloured robes and each of them was standing in the circle rimmed with the same colour as his robe. The larger circle remained empty. A bright column of white light shined upon the larger circle.   
"Hurry up!" The leader said impatiently, but keeping his smirk.   
"Silence! We need time to unify the elements!" The lead priest said, standing in the black-rimmed circle and clutching to his long twisted staff with a pearl-sized black orb at the top.   
"Uh-huh."   
The expression-less priests started chanting simultaneously, each in different language, and their voices echoing in the chamber.   
  
_"O the Guardians of the Eight Elements   
Cronos of Fire   
Uranus of Ice   
Xion of Thunder   
Leviathan of Water   
Ganesha of Earth   
Kohryu of Wind   
Eva of Holy   
Hellion of Shadow  
Release your grips on your elements   
Unify to one person   
And form the Ninth Element   
Make him the Wielder and Guardian of the Ninth Element."  
_  
Still smirking, the leader stepped to the middle circle and waited. All priests held their staffs out. Then the priest wearing flaming orange robe shouted to the sole orange-red pearl on one end of his staff.   
  
_"Cronos the Fire   
The Phoenix of Rage   
Hand out your Element!"  
_  
Glowing brightly, the orange-red pearl dislodged itself from the staff and hovered to the leader, circling around him. The sky-blue robed priest's voice echoed through the chamber fluidly.  
_  
_ _"Uranus the Ice   
The Chimera of Imprisonment   
Thaw your Element free!"  
_  
The frosty white pearl also dislodged itself and joined the orange-red pearl.   
  
_"Xion the Thunder   
The Unborn of Unshaped   
Release the Element soul within you!"  
_  
A flashing blue pearl joined the two circling pearls.   
  
_"Leviathan the Water   
The Serpent of Calmness   
Calm the waves and reveal the Element!"  
_  
A greenish-blue pearl circled the black-haired man and the pearls stopped circling but remained hovering, in a half-octagon formation.   
  
_"Ganesha the Earth   
The Elephant of Persistence   
Rip open the ground and uncover the Element!"  
_  
A brown pearl joined the formation.   
_  
_ _"Kohryu the Wind   
The Iron Mole of Freedom   
Settle the twister and unleash your Element!"_  
  
An emerald green pearl this time. _  
  
_ _"Eva the Holy   
The Eagle of Law   
Shed your light and pass him your Element!" _  
_  
"Hellion the Darkness   
The Eternally Damned of Pain  
Illuminate your shadow and unhidden your Element!"_  
  
When the lead priest was done with his turn, eight glowing pearls surrounded the green-eyed man. A smirked appeared on his lips, then suddenly the pearls glowed brilliantly, so bright that everyone within the room was blinded. The brilliance diminished, the pearls were gone, and so were the priests. The man quickly looked around, slightly confused. Then unleashed a stream of obscenities.   
"They're gone!"  
He felt no new powers within him.  
"Find the elements as soon as possible, dammit!" He barked at a nearby minion, almost wanting to grab the nearest person and rip him into pieces.  
  
----------  
**Author's Notes:** Needless to say, the next chapter should be up in a week or two. How, here's a mini-game: I'm going to make references to other games, animes, literature, movies, and etc in the story. Try to list all of them! A free plushie to those who can list every single one of them, including those from the first chapter to epilogue! ^.~ Have fun and I hope you'll enjoy it!  



	2. Raging Sorrow

**YEAH YEAH... Finally I found a mean to upload this chapter! Yeppie, it's about time that I get back into fanfic writing again... Hopefully, Ch. 2 wouldn't be far behind.******

**Chapter 1: Raging Sorrow**

_What… What the hell happened? In six o'clock in the morning?_

Kenji Ohgami grabbed his sword and rushed outside at the loud bellow of a struck bell. While the women and the children rushed back inside their houses in the sleepy village of Zill, warriors grabbed their weapons and rushed outside. It could mean only one thing: A typical bandit raid. Although the village was located remotely in the base of a raging volcano, it still faced waves of bandits invading at least once every season. Kenji, having attended the ability to fight off the bandits two years ago, fought them only four times. 

Same as the last four times, Kenji ran to the nearest closed gate, stood beside his best friend Kio, waited behind the lines of adults and skilled fighters, and looked up at the sky for signs of his demi-dragon master, Prometheus whose nickname was Scorch. The locks shut loudly and shutters were closed and barred. Mages lined up behind Kenji's line. 

The village of Zill was one of those Firavana, the Kingdom of Fire, villages situated in the middle of nowhere, its connection to the nearest cities was only a pair of beaten roads. With the nearest village as far as two kilometres away, Zill had to be autarkic in many ways—including fighting against waves of desperate men who resorted to violence to dispel their lack of wealth and compensation for their condemned being. Fortunately, the village was right below the volcano named Mount Hunt, where a demi-dragon resided by himself. Scorch had been able to help them to fight off waves of bandits very effectively, but unfortunately sometimes it took him thirty minutes upward to be notified and prepared. So, the village had to been trained in battles and fighting skills. Usually, the raids fail and the village jail receives five new residents. Kenji had help with the arrest of five bandits that even made it in, just one away from Kio's record of six. 

"Kenji, you know you can't beat me." Kio smiled at Kenji, flipped a kunai into air, and caught it. "Come on, you know I'm the better student of Scorch." 

"So? We'll see if you can stay a star pupil." Kenji snickered, running a hand through his cobalt hair. "I bet his alter ego likes me more." 

Scorch Prometheus, a dragon zoanthrope mastered in the art of Draconian ninjutsu, was Kenji and Kio's teacher in many aspects, not just fighting, but language, literature, history, and even extreme lavaboarding. They were his only apprentices for twelve years. According to him, Scorch moved into the village approximately thirteen years ago, after living in Draco for seventy years. He still looked barely out of twenties while fast approaching one century in human age. Demi-dragons, or humans capable of transforming into a dragon-like form, always have a way to age slower than a pure human, perhaps thanks to their dragon blood. However, it was noticeable that a fair amount of demi-dragons die of unnatural causes before they reach one hundred. It was because all the demi-dragons have two souls in their bodies, and sometimes the souls would never agree, they say. 

"It's only because those who dies early couldn't agree with their rival soul." Scorch once commented. "And knowing you, of course I have made friend with my alter ego, just that he likes to sleep for years." 

Kenji looked back at the small, bland concrete buildings that lined the main street. His lighter-haired friend looked back as well. 

"Worrying about the other side?" Kio raised his eyebrows. 

"Not really." Kenji the mole zoanthrope returned his attention to the barred gate before him, shrugging in his dark gray, sleeveless ninja gi with silver lining. 

Somehow, Kenji looked contradictory to his best friend and classmate when the two stood side-to-side. Both of them being only fifteen years old and nearly the same height, Kenji's darker garments contradicted Kio's white long-sleeved ninja gi, as well as Kio's very light brown, well-groomed hair against Kenji's cobalt, somewhat unruly hair. While Kenji looked ordinarily lean and well build, Kio was just a pile of twigs ready to snap any moment. Their different fighting styles resulted in that as well: Kenji was the superior ninja in melee battles and techniques, while Kio excelled in ranged combat. Scorch complimented them for achieving level higher than an ordinary ninja in last year's 11th anniversary of training. The two couldn't know whether Scorch was being serious or just trying to cheer them up- Firavana was not well known for ninjas, nor that Zill had any other ninjas beside the trio. 

"Kenji, you know, there's a pretty girl who…" 

"…wants to give you some hickey after you get your tenth bandit…" 

"…in front of the whole village at the city hall…" 

"…while I sulk somewhere in the party without a single lad." Kenji shrugged. It wasn't because no girls like him, but rather, he never felt emotionally attracted to any of the opposite sex. 

"…because you haven't hit your puberty." Kio added, and had his arm slugged. 

"Well, that girl you're speaking of is two years underage." A verbal counterattack linked with the physical. "Makes you three years older and her sempai." 

"Target within vision! Can't make sure of their number yet! Fast approaching archer range!" A guard yelled from a watchtower guarding beside the gate. With the wall and the gate dividing the two sides, Kenji had no idea of what was going on behind the wall, although sometimes he would get a good idea. 

First, a shower of arrows would try to thin out the waiting line, then some rocks and occasionally a small crude firebomb. Usually they bring a battering ram as well, taking down the massive wooden door as fast as they could manage. The first two were easy to counter against, although there was a shortage of archers in the Zill. All the archers were probably aiming on the other side, where the area was more open outside and more enemies tend to attack. 

_I'll just wait, hide behind a shelter from arrows, and if they break open the door, I'll jump out and fight. If I survive, I'll catch enough bandits to beat Kio. Then Scorch will show up and save the day. Then, we would have a party at the city hall, and I'll throw some food at him. I will go home and fall asleep. Same as the last times._

Kenji assured himself and slacked slightly. In a moment, he realized the assumption couldn't be any more incorrect. 

"Enemies' stopped!" The guard reported. 

The warriors knew what it usually meant, raised their shields overhead, and peeked at the sky for signs of projectiles. Moments passed, nothing happened. 

"What's taking them so long?" Kio whispered to Kenji, both standing out in the open with their weapons readied. 

Arrows wouldn't pose much of a threat if they knew the direction of their origins, plus, the two are more than capable of intercepting arrows with bare hands. Usually, the enemies fired arrows within several minutes of arrival. However, ten minutes had passed. 

"No idea-." There was a loud screeching sound in the air, and the watchtower suddenly burst into a screaming fireball. 

Following the fireball, a dozen of thin contrails of grey smoke gashed through the air above the village, then spiraled down toward the buildings. 

"Missiles!" Someone yelled as the dozen missiles crashed into buildings not to far from the waiting warriors. 

Explosions shook the ground lightly, and Kenji's side wasn't the only one to suffer the missile attack. The other side was caught off guard as well. Warriors scrambled frantically, transiting from order to chaos within seconds as several of the missiles aimed for the mass of people. A missile exploded right in front of the army, directly behind the wall. People dived, most evading the flying debris narrowly. Several unlucky ones were injured and scorched. 

Kenji and Kio quickly dived into the nearest alley, pressing their backs against the wall. 

"Since when they got missiles!?" Kenji asked, peeked out at the gate, and quickly retreated from another explosion. 

"No idea!" Kio's hands were beginning to tremble. "If bandits have the missiles, then—." 

Another explosion ripped through the air, this one seemed to be louder and more powerful. Before Kio could finish his words, they came true. When Kenji peeked around the corner, the gate was no more, replaced by a massive, flaming gap in the concrete wall. Several bloody bodies laid around the debris, groaning and injured from the blast. From the thick smoke, a squad of people stormed into the village. The invaders were definitely not bandits. They were all dressed in black, with masks and helmets covering their faces. Their garments have several pockets on their chests and their legs. In their hands were black, cylindrical devices with thin barrels jutting out. 

Without a warning, the barrels burst into tongues of orange flames accompanied by loud series of small explosions. Kenji swiftly retreated to his hiding place as a warrior within their vision suddenly collapsed, his chest bursting with colors of pink and crimson. 

"Machine guns!?" Kio's eyes widened in horror. 

"Those aren't Firavana bandits- they are Techs!" Kenji shook his head in disbelief, his hands shaking lightly. 

"Techs!? We don't have the weapons matching their firepower!" 

Bullets struck the wall that had been hiding Kenji and Kio from the vision of the invaders. 

"We better move!" Kenji gave Kio a push. 

The two quickly scrambled down the alley as bullets continued to fly behind them, and the horrible screams of death filled the air. Light contrails continued to streak throughout the air, and more explosions roared around them. 

* * * * * 

"Sir, the invasion's begun." The captain muttered to the communicator. 

"Affirmative, keep an eye out for people who possess unusually good control over Fire, and they better be full of rage." The leader, sitting in his comfortable chair with his feet on his desk, ordered from far away. 

With a wave of hand, the captain led his bodyguards into the gap beneath a charred sign saying "Welcome to Zill." 

* * * * * 

"We're… Too late…" Kio said sorrowfully, standing back to back with Kenji. 

The invaders had found and surrounded them. Kenji's tearful eyes could only see only the remains of two houses burned to the ground. The precious houses of his and Kio's families. They couldn't stop the missiles from destroying their precious homes, nor they could even warn their families and friends of the situation. The people who crowded inside the house, for safety, were gone, vaporized by an explosion. Just like that, vaporized within a second, and they were gone. Kenji couldn't believe it—he saw his very own home, and someone peeking outside the window at them—the precise moment it detonated into a fireball. 

"Why… What are you people trying to do…" Kenji said to his enemies, who clearly out numbered him ten to one. 

In the face of merciless death, the two raised their weapons, Kio with a bit of trouble since several shards of metal had penetrated his arms. 

"Nothing personal, kid. We are just soldiers." One of the killers said, his face completely hidden behind a darkly tinted visor. 

"Nothing personal!? I'll show you why!" Kenji, enraged, quickly lunged forward for the soldier with his weapon poised for a decapitating strike before Kio could try to stop him. 

The soldier remained calm and aimed his rifle as Kenji came into striking range. The ninja quickly swung his sword at the soldier's neck. There was a single crackling of rifle, and Kenji's weapon missed the soldier's vital point harmlessly. The young boy's sword was broken, its separated blade embedding in the ground. The only blade remaining was three inches of jagged metal attached to the ruby hilt. For a second, he looked at his broken weapon in disbelief, then received a painful kick to solar plexus. 

"Gaa!" He gasped as he skidded back to the center of the circle on his heels, his stomach cringing in searing pain. 

"You okay!?" Kio asked. 

A groan of pain. "Yes… I'm fine…" With an arm pressing against his abdomen, Kenji forced himself to not scream out in pain. His body refused to move and only trembled in pain. 

"We need to find a way to escape!" 

"You speak as if you can do so easily." A soldier chuckled, and others followed suit. 

Screams of pain and death continued to fill the air, accompanied with crackling of rifles and contrails of thin smoke lining through the air. The smell of burning flesh was the odor of the battlefield. The village couldn't hold any longer, and it already lost the battle. Scorch still hadn't show up. Both teenagers were already shaking in fear, frozen in their tracks. 

"Let's play around with them, should we?" A third soldier commented. 

"Sure. I'll take that dark haired boy. I'm going for his heart." A fourth aimed and squeezed the trigger. 

"Kenji—." A string of crackling from the rifle. 

Kenji jerked his head away from his would-be killer, expecting a jab of pain to end his life. He shut his eyes tight. Hot blood flew and splattered on to the ground. Yet, he was still alive. And he felt himself covered in warm liquid. 

_It can't be!_

He opened his eyes, and his nightmare had come true. 

"Kenji…" Kio smiled back at him with blood flowing from his curling lips. 

"Kio!" 

A cloud of small holes had located itself in the young boy's chest, staining his white ninja gi red with fresh blood. The soldier who fired the gun laid dead, with a bloody kunai jutting out from his mouth. Surprisingly, the other soldiers didn't fire. Kenji could say nothing, only catching his best friend's falling body. Emotions added to the burden already high within his pained heart. His heart was carrying far more sorrow than it could ever bear. 

"You know… You always had been the better ninja than me…" 

"But that isn't true!" Kenji yelled, shaking his best friend's fragile body. 

"Oh yes… It's true…" He coughed up blood, his eyes weakening. "Kenji… Just that… I've always wanted to… at least contribute… To helping people… I'm… feeling sleepy…" 

"You have! Damn it, now would you stay awake!" 

"…I guess I have nothing much to say… Since you know… What I mean… All… I know… Is… That…" The eyelids shut themselves, and the limbs went limp. The last kunai in his hand dropped to the ground. 

"Kio- you bastard- I know you're still alive! You still can stay alive! Wake up!" 

Kenji didn't realize that tears were flowing from his eyes. 

"You bastard…" He coughed out a laugh, and slowly put his best friend's bloodstained body to the ground. 

And so he lost his best friend the way he lost his family. He could have protected them, but he couldn't accomplish so. They were taken away from him just like that, instantly and effortlessly. He didn't even get to hear their last words—and he was waiting the battle eagerly. Now, their lives were blown away like a candle, all it took was a little blow to extinguish their lives. 

"You bastard…" He banged a fist against the ground, his other hand clenching the hilt of his broken sword with white knuckles. 

_Those merciless sons of bitches…_

"Had enough of drama yet?" One of the soldiers impatiently asked Kenji. "You didn't do a thing." 

"Yeah, don't we all get tired of those stories where people who tried to avenge their close ones and actually succeed?" Another joked, and the soldiers laughed. 

_Why are you laughing…_

"Too bad the dead kid didn't finish his last testament. You'd think he'd last long enough just for the hell of a plot. Well, I guess this is where the hero picks up his weapon and kills the nearest killers." Another burst of heartless laughter. 

_Stop it…_

"Oooh- I'm scared. He's going to look up at us with his eyes burning with rage." 

_Stop it!_

"Yeah right, as if he can stab that pathetic weapon through our body armor. That broken thing might as well as be used for letter openers. If we had a camera, we'd make a profit in the movie industry." 

_Stop it! Stop it!_

"Ninjas or not. Firavana or not. They are so pathetic. They all are." 

_Did you hear me!? I said STOP IT!_

* * * * * 

"Report." 

"Sir! The village's annihilated! We found no one matching the personality description." 

"Any survivors?" 

"Just one boy." 

"What is he doing now?" 

"According to the soldiers, he's mourning the death of his accomplice." 

"How?" 

"Weeping like a girl." 

"Not the type I'm looking for. Kill him. Sounds like we just destroyed a village just for fun. I'm out. And to think I expected someone to be full of anger…" 

* * * * * 

"I just got a message from captain relayed from the highest echelon. We just destroyed the village for nothing." 

"Let's finish that kid now, then we all can have a drink soon." 

"Already wanting to bang away on your bitch?" 

"STOP IT! STOP IT!" Kenji erupted fiercely and painfully, stood up, and immediately lunged for the nearest laughing soldiers. 

The soldiers, not expecting such a fiery retaliation, quickly aimed their rifles on the charging boy and squeezed the triggers. However, their rifles were destroyed before the triggers were squeezed. With a single swipe of his broken sword, Kenji actually cut through the barrels of three rifles trained on him. The soldiers, totally surprised by the sudden burst of speed and strength from the boy, caught a glimpse of his dark brown eyes. The rage within his eyes was something the soldiers had never experienced before—and they wouldn't live to tell the vile tale to their grandchildren. 

"I WILL NOT LET MY VILLAGE DIE FOR NOTHING!" 

His body running entirely on raging impulse, Kenji stabbed his broken sword deep into the middle of the first soldier's face, then ripped the blade out to one side, while hacking through the two other faces. Blood flew as the defaced bodies collapsed to the ground. The Dragon Ninja spun around to face the other seventeen soldiers, who froze upon glancing his eyes. They trembled in fear, unbelieving the sheer amount of killing intents burning within the young boy's eyes. Within a fraction of the second, he had killed three highly trained soldiers as if they were nothing. Now, the seventeen soldiers would be his next victims. 

He glanced at the terrified soldiers, uttered a war cry, and dashed for them with his broken sword reared. As soon as he took his first step, he felt a release of boiling energy within him, but he was fully focused on the death of those close to him, on avenging his dead families and friends. This was when a brilliant blade of orange flames erupted out of the sword's guard, taking the form of the sword's original shape. For a nanosecond, the blade of fire was of ethereal form, then defied the nature of physic. The flame, once dancing fierily, had transformed into a orange, glowing liquid, almost like molten metal, yet purely of fire. Of a raging inferno contained and harnessed by Kenji's raging sorrow and killing intent toward the destroyers of his home. He didn't even notice the blade of inferno, just acting on his ferocious instincts. He came to the first soldier in a blur, and swung horizontally. A scream, and the soldier's body parted way in a shower of hot blood. For some reason, the blade of fire didn't cauterize the wound; rather, it seemed to encourage the bloodletting far better than an ordinary metal blade. 

Before the first soldier even collapsed, Kenji was already upon the next three. Kenji quickly rammed his left fist deep into the abdomen of a soldier and punched through his body in another shower of blood and guts, but the punch didn't stop here. Using unusual strength and speed, the punch rammed into another soldier's abdomen and tore through the body, and stopped after exiting the body of a third. With three body skewered by one of his arms, Kenji ripped the fist out with a single movement, releasing more blood. Without even slowing down, he sprung toward the next soldier with a kick to his chest. As he landed on the soldier's chest, he brought his flaming sword down to halve the man's masked face with ease. Growling at the remaining soldiers within his vicinity, he lunged for another killer like a savage beast with his bloody hands holding his hateful burning sword overhead… 

"If you want to leave—there is only one way!" 

The enraged boy panted lightly for air, surrounding himself with the dead, mutilated bodies of the original twenty soldiers and ten of their reinforcement. It wasn't over yet. He heard a footstep, turned around, and found another squad of five soldiers coming in his way with their weapons raised. He sighed and charged toward the oncoming squad, and this time, a gaseous aura of fire began to envelop around his body with a warm comfort, but it didn't ease the pain of his losses. The squad of soldiers aimed and opened fired on Kenji, who continued dashing for his next victims. With a battle cry, he ran into the bullets. But however, the bullets didn't hit him—they were melt and deflected by his flaming aura. The soldiers stopped after realizing the results, but it was too late. Kenji was right before them, and swung his sword broadly. The sword of liquid, raging fire suddenly extended its length by five times, and all five soldiers dropped in a blood-spewing fountain of separated torsos. 

"Quick! Kill him!" 

The teenaged ninja jerked his head at the direction of the voice, and caught sight of an unmasked man standing behind a line of ten gunmen with rifles aimed for him down the street. Bullets flew as well as miniature-missiles. Kenji only stared at them angrily, standing at a distance of over one hundred metres away from them. The missiles cruised through the air cleanly in curves, and crashed into the ground beneath him. An explosion ripped a crater in the ground, leaving a thick cloud of smoke. For a second, Kenji disappeared into the thick smoke. 

The captain looked relieved, chuckled, and let his men lower their weapons. A quick check with his communicator system revealed that every other soldier had been disposed of. 

"Let's go. We've done it. Our team's officially nearly wiped out by one little boy." 

He turned around and nearly ran into Kenji, who only stared at them coldly. 

"Fast… But no good, kid. You're as pathetic as your village." The captain remained calm and sneering. Silently, a poisoned blade extended out of one of his wrist guards and he rammed it forward. Fighting dirty was always nice… 

The blade missed its target completely. The young boy suddenly grabbed the attacker's fully extended arm with one hand and bent it backward in an impossible ankle with a snap that sounded awfully loud in the attacker's ears. Before the first tone of melody escape the assassin's mouth, the ninja swiftly planted a feet in his abdomen while holding onto his broken arm and jerked the airborne body overhead. Then he thrust his flaming sword deep into the helpless man's hurting abdomen within a blink of an eye. There was no hesitation for Kenji. He didn't stop to wonder the source of his sudden increase in strength and speed. 

"If I'm pathetic, then you're beyond pathetic." 

The impaled man gasped. 

"Tell me, for what purpose did you… have to murder my family, my friends?" 

"I'm… just… following… his… orders…" The dying man choked, unbelieving that his own men didn't do anything to save him. 

"Who? Who is he?" 

"A… grim… son…" 

"A grim son?" 

The man took a deep, anguishing breath… "His… name… is… Agrimson…" 

"Tell me, where he is." Kenji drove his flaming sword deeper into the man's abdomen, injecting excruciating pain. 

"…Sol…" That was the last word of the captain. 

Kenji slowly repeated the name, and tossed the body away. 

The rest of the soldiers quickly took aim at the boy while their squad leader was executed. However, before they could even open fire, he vanished in a blur—moving to behind them with speed unattained before. The sword remained impaled in the captain's abdomen, but Kenji wouldn't need it to dispose the last of his malicious murderers of his family and Kio. Within a fraction of a second, Kenji called up his anthromorphic genes, unveiling his natural morphing ability to his only other form. 

He instinctively roared, but only the loud screeching sound of a rodent came out. His bones were among the first to undergo the transformation, as the bones of the first and second segments of all his ten fingers began to fuse and expand exponentially. His fingernails merged with the fused bones as they erupted out of the skin, quickly replacing his fingers with oversized, whitish claws. His palm also grew in size as well, while the claws stopped growing at barely larger than his palms. His entire skin began to turn brown as coffee furs quickly replaced all trace of his epidermis. His nose began to sharpen and stretched out as the bluish-black hair disappeared. His jaws followed the shape of the nose, the lips hid by the furs. His eyes turned from a combination of white, brown, and black to purely flaming orange with just two black slits. Whiskers also formed at the end of the transmuted nose. His toe bones fused together to form only two talons jutting out each of his sandals. Kenji the mole zoanthrope completed his transformation within just a second, and his claws were rammed into the chest of an unlucky soldier within an instant after they completed sharpening. Without even taking a millisecond to enjoy a strangely orgasmic sensation as the man's live innards tangled with Kenji's massive claws, he ripped the claws free with a swipe.   
* * * * * 

"Why… Why have I failed… When I was so damn close!?" 

Kenji screamed, clasping his head as he dropped to his knees. Back in his human form, he realized he had killed all of his murderers. However, he still felt worse than having his heart being torn out alive. 

_Mother! Kio! I couldn't save you! I am just worthless garbage!_

Kenji cried again and collapsed as light seemed to be getting further and further away, until he was completely engulfed in a darkness where blood was everywhere, and he was the only one… 

"Kenji!?" A very familiar voice. Scorch. 

Before he could think anymore, his consciousness disappeared… 

* * * * * 

"Sir! All of our invasion squad have been killed in ten minutes!" 

"Guess the chicken wuss isn't kidding about that Wielder of Fire." A snort. "Bring me that wuss." 

"Yessir, I'll alert other armies." 

"Don't bother. Those killed were simply citizen volunteers, with minimal training. Frankly, I'm not even surprised." 

* * * * * 

He was all alone in the darkness, but he felt no compulsion to scream. He only remained motionless, his eyes staring blankly at nothing. He could see only darkness, yet he could see everything clearly—it was a darkness that can be seen through. 

_Sorry… I couldn't save you… I cannot forgive myself…_

He realized he was lying down in the void, and slowly propped himself up. He felt his hands wet when he set them down on the ground, and there was a small splashing sound. Deliberately, he looked down at his wet hands, now stained crimson by… 

_Blood._

Something went through his mind, but he couldn't tell for sure. Was it fear, hate, anger, surprise, or sorrow? Or perhaps all of them? 

_So much blood…_

All the images flooded back to him. He didn't actually see it, but his overshadowed judgment imagination had provided him additional information ever since. 

_What happened…_

First, the explosion opened the gate and began the raping of the village. He could see the bodies of his friends, his families… All dead in one large sanguinary lake… And the killers were laughing crazily while they continued to mutilate the bodies… His house had burst into flames, along with his own mother and the baby siblings of Kio… A group of small toddlers huddled and cowered together in unfathomable fear before the deadly inferno devoured them as well, stripping their liquefying flesh off their charred bones. Their high-pitched wail diminished with every chunk of blackened tissue falling off their slender, delicate body… All the village faded away into nothingness… 

_Yes… I have failed my village… All while I did nothing._

"Kenji… You know… You always have… been the superior ninja… So… You deserve to live… more than me…" 

Suddenly, he was reunited with Kio, who only lied in his arms with blood flowing from his gaping mouth, crimson holes scattered all over his chest. The familiar, warm glint in his eyes slowly faded away, and the eyelids were closed. Then, the body vaporized into a grey mist, swirling gently around Kenji before dissipated. Did Kio just finish his dying words? Or was it just a figure of his imagination? Kenji couldn't know for sure. Then, the sanguine darkness emanated a hysterical laughter, which Kenji would not forget for a long time. He looked at the hyena laugh's apparent source. 

It was a black, masked face holding a smoking rifle in Kenji's face. 

_Who are you? Why? WHY?_

He reached out for the mask and tore it off- and found a hysterically laughing face. However, the face wasn't really a face at all- it was just a blur. It had no nose, no eyes, no ears, no hair, no complexion. Just a blur with a mouth emanating horrific laughter… 

_Stop laughing at me!_

The unknown only continued to laugh… 

_Stop it! Stop it!_

Kenji swung his fist into the blurry, and it merely disappeared, but the laughter continued resonating throughout the air. With every agonizing second, the laughter grew louder and louder, to the point that it seemed to came from everywhere. Kenji screamed, clasped his hands over his ears, and ran. Not long after he broke into a run, suddenly he tripped and tried to get up, but his feet wouldn't obey his order. The laughter soon closed in… Kenji curled into fetus position with his ears covered and continued to scream in the abyssal void. The menacing laughter only came closer and closer… 

_Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Take whatever you want and leave me alone!_

Until it seemed to come from inside him. 

* * * * * 

"Stop it!" He screamed and shot up. 

Silence. The face was no longer there. Panting heavily, he reoriented himself, even though the pain remained. Then he realized he was sitting up on a bed, sweating heavily. He looked around the room. It was a bland room with smooth wall of rock, like a cavern. In the middle of the bland room were the only pieces of furniture beside the stone bed covered by a straw blanket: A circular stone table and its sole companion, a wooden chair. On the table was a neatly folded pile of garments and a broken sword—with Kenji's signature crafted onto its ruby hilt. Staring at the table for a moment in total silence, Kenji didn't know what to think. Slowly, he realized his garments were completely soaked in blood and had several tears. 

_So it wasn't a dream… It was all gone._

His mind went blank for a while, unable to conjure up any images or vivid thought. Serenely, he picked up the readied garments and changed. 

After changing into the clean, long-sleeved dark gray ninja gi prepared for him, Kenji walked to the wooden door, opened it and left the room. The broken sword remained untouched on the table. He walked into some sort of a living room, also of a cave. After a moment of indecision, he finally realized that the caves belonged to his master. For the first time, he walked around in his master's residence, but the demi-dragon was nowhere to be seen. Hesitating slightly, he returned to the living room and exited it. 

Upon the first sight of outside, Kenji felt a stab of pain, but he didn't cry or finch—he just acted neutrally. The first thing he saw was a large area of open land burned into black ashes. It was the very remain of Zill, and it looked enormous even though it was several kilometres away and Kenji was standing on a place which overlooked it. Perhaps Scorch had been rushing to the village at the first explosion. Perhaps he ran into some trouble. 

Perhaps not. 

Feeling depressed, yet unusually nonchalant, he took a walk. 

* * * * * 

Kenji walked beyond the ruin of the gate that was destroyed before his very own eyes, the welcoming sign burned into halves laid beside him. Everything still had light, thin smoke billowing from them. The blood looked recently clotted. How long had he passed away? Kenji couldn't know for sure, not until he finds Scorch. Walking down the destroyed street, he noticed that there were no dead corpses around anywhere. In his heart, a small hope lingered. However, other sights weighed down on his already sunken heart. All the buildings, once homely and cozy had been destroyed, burned to the ground so literally that he could see many the streets and their vague remains from where he was. His heart was weeping, but no tears came out of his dry eyes. 

He walked to the center of the town, and found himself facing a large clearing with many holes dug into them. Graves. There still wasn't anyone in his sight, alive or dead. He walked to the middle of the newly formed cemetery, and began to find bodies lying beside the empty graves, all of them lying face up with their hands clasped together. He recognized the people, but found nobody familiar. Then, finally, he found a living being. 

A man looking still under thirties and dressed in black garments laid a body carefully down beside a grave. The man's bright blue hair obscured his petite face, but Kenji knew his identity the instant he saw the man's tattered cloak purposefully cut into two perfect halves. 

"Scorch." 

The man froze shortly, then slowly his own sorrowful bluish eyes locked with the boy's eyes. "Kenji." 

There was an awkward silence, but the message between the two was clear; there was nothing much to say. 

"How are you feeling now?" The demi-dragon asked. The dead silence continued. 

"…Is Kio…" The teenager slowly asked. 

Scorch looked away regretfully. 

"I know it! Damn it!" 

"Kenji…" 

"I couldn't save them! Why I couldn't—." 

"Kenji. Calm yourself down." 

"You telling me to calm down? You? You are late! If you would have come earlier, my village wouldn't be dead!" 

"Kenji. I know." 

"Why don't you go and dig your own grave! You murdered my family!" Suddenly, Kenji felt a jab from the back of his head and collapsed to his knees, panting heavily. Upon that jab, Kenji began to felt calmer and took deep breath. 

"I'm sorry…" Scorch cautiously helped his apprentice to his feet. 

"…Thanks. I needed that. What did you do?" Kenji said, his voice still shaking with sadness. 

"A pressure point on the back of your head, help to relieve anger.' 

A quick scan of his surrounding. "Was there… any other survivors?" 

"When I came, you were one of the only two survivors." 

"Where's the other one?" 

"He was about to kill you from behind you, so I had to kill him." 

"You dug all the graves by yourself?" A nod. "How long have I been out?" 

"Only six hours." 

Silence. 

"…Can I…?" 

Scorch nodded in silence and gestured Kenji to follow him. The younger ninja followed in silence, walking past empty graves and their permanent residents. Some graves were already covered and filled, with names craved into their respective wooden monuments. Soon, they were on the opposite side of the village-turned graveyard. Over there, Kenji could see a large heap of bodies dressed in black, most of them maimed and their body parts were simply threw into one huge lump with their bodies. One of the bodies had a silver javelin halfway through his face, and the javelin supported the body so its back didn't even touch the ground. The body, untouched since its death, was clearly the other survivor. The man's lifeless eyes stared skyward, almost lingering with the desperation and hopelessness existing just before his death. 

Scorch stopped beside an uncovered grave, and Kenji stopped beside its edge and crouched. Inside the dirt grave, lying on his back peacefully with his hands together over his bloody chest, was Kio sleeping his eternal rest. The tiny smile he died with remained on his innocent face. Kenji's heart pained, and he looked away after studying his best friend for the last time. A tear ran slowly down his cheek, and a hand reached up to wipe it away. Scorch was looking away from the grave, barely hiding his pain. 

"Enough." The student stood up and walked away. 

"Kenji, I know what you are thinking about." 

He stopped, and without turning back: "Are you going to stop me?" 

"Actually, I am going to help you." 

Kenji looked back. 

"I will help you on your journey because of your newfound powers and your uncontrollable emotions." 

"You were there when I killed those… bastards!?" 

"No. I can tell because of the degree of… mutilation caused to the body. You didn't even try to control yourself." 

"So?" 

"I have to make sure that you don't unleash your rage on wrong people for wrong reason." 

"I won't." 

"You will. Eventually." 

* * * * * 

The very next day, Kenji bowed down to the grave of Kio, and walked to his waiting teacher. As he walked away from the new, peaceful graves, he wiped tears from his eyes and shot the burning pile of the dead pitiless killers. Wearing a new, clean suit of dark gray sleeveless ninja gi and a long, tattered crimson scarf, he felt a bit easier on his body, but not on his burdened heart. The red hilt of the broken sword that he dearly used to kill many people jutted out of his belt. Slinging a knapsack over his shoulder, he stopped beside the blue-haired dragon zoanthrope, looked back at the village, nodded to his companion, and walked away from the ruins of the wall that once defended Zill from bandits invasions. 

"Kio, he used to…" Kenji shook his head, recollecting a trip which he, Kio, and Scorch made together only last year. He had stopped crying. Was there anything left to cry about? Why bother crying? He didn't notice the black, runic mark on the back of his left hand. 

----   
Author's Note: -.- I know, perhaps a bit of a cliche. But whatever, at least I finally find the time to sit down and write. Keep in mind that the next few chapters will be introduction of the major characters. Most of them are very familiar to you all. Don't ask me whatever happened to ZLF or such. Enjoy! 


	3. Innocent Freedom

**Wow, I surprised myself by finishing this chapter earlier than I thought. I hope you guys wouldn't mind the next few following chapters, since I ought to introduce the characters in the similiar method as this and Kenji's. Two intros down, six more to go...******

**Chapter 2: Innocent Freedom**

Several thousand miles away from Zill, Firavana, Icion remained frozen under a carpet of innocent, pure snow. Near the base of one of the kingdom's legendary mountain, not too far from one of the many busy chair lifts, someone fell. To be specifically, a snowboarder dressed in blue and white suit with a blue toque, goggle, and scarf hiding her face. 

"Uuugh!" Uriko Nonomura groaned as she skidded down the slope face first, her snowboard slowing down her fall. 

When she came to a stop, she found a gloved hand ready to help her. She took it, stood up, and thanks, but the hands didn't release her hand. 

"What—." A closer inspection of the kind fellow person revealed him to be a familiar person. "Oh, it's you, Captain Kawa." 

She removed her scarf and ski goggle, revealing her large chocolate eyes and her petite, innocent face. 

"Princess Sherrine, please come back to the castle." Kawa said patiently. "Don't try to escape again, we have you surrounded." 

Uriko looked around and found the man to be correct. About twenty people, dressed in light blue suit of armor with matching cloak wrapped around them. Kawa was dressed in the same manner as his soldiers, although he has a darker cloak to identify his status. Unmistakably, they were the Royal Guards of Icion with only one duty, and that was to serve the highest echelon of the Hierarchy of Kingdom of Ice. Their reasons was her—she's the sole daughter of King of Icion. Although her legal name was Sherrine Baz, she had always seen Uriko Nonomura as her real name. However, she used neither names, just one of her many alias to stay low as she took her time to cross the border. 

"What if I don't want to?" She lost count of the number of times she had asked the question to the same person. "The last time we met was only one month ago, and you cut my beautiful braid to shoulder length!" 

"Princess, we will use force if necessary. Your father, King Baz, had authorized the necessary uses of non-lethal means to bring you back. Please come back to your! Yesterday was your fifteenth birthday—it is time for you to be courted. We have princes lined up to be chosen by you. I promise you will be satisfied, for your father selected their Highness to be the Heir of Icion Hierarchy." 

"Forget it, I'd rather to die than marrying to some snobby strangers. Tell King Baz that no way I'm going to go back to that prision! Now get your ass out here before I get mad!" 

"Princess, watch your language." The Captain of Royal Guards stiffened. 

"What are you going to do with me? Whip me?" She stuck her tongue out at him. 

Kawa had enough of the Princess' rude manner, and his other hand quickly struck out to slap her. However, Uriko saw the disciplining movement coming and quickly jerked back. As his slap missed her, she quickly used her attacker's grab on her hand to swing her small, slender body around and shifted her weight to her free hand while bringing her snowboard up into air. Before the captain could realize his mistake, Uriko's snowboard slammed into his jaw so hard that he was knocked back slightly and forced to let go of his target. 

"Well, since you taught me to fight since I was only three…" 

Without saying anymore, she suddenly dropped to a crouch, coiling her powerful legs and sprung forward in full force. The snowboard lifted with relative ease while the Royal Guards, caught without their boards, struggled to even lift a foot. The female cat zoanthrope leaped over their heads easily and landed perfectly on the slope, making her getaway for the hotel where she left her possession—on the top of the mountain. Quickly she slid into the longest chairlift, untied one of her binding, and was soon sitting on one of the chairs by herself. As she went over the stumbling Royal Guards, Uriko smiled brightly at them and waved a hand. There was still plenty of people in the line up, plus it would be a very major inconvenience to shut down the chairlift. Throw in Baz's unwillingness to attract public attraction, and Uriko had been able to create escapes easily. 

"Such a shame that King Baz doesn't want to see me on the headline!" She yelled at the Royal Guards from above cheerily, and looked up at the direct ride to the gleaming crystalline hotel sitting lazily on the summit of the mountain. 

_It would be an incredibly easy escape, all I have to do is…_

* * * * * 

"Greeting, Miss Akiki. Going up?" The elevator boy greeted Uriko by her fake name. 

"Thanks." She removed her toque, revealing her shiny auburn hair with a braid dangling behind her, just touching her shoulder. Two strands of hair brushed against her delicate eyebrows. 

Leaning her snowboard against one of the mirror wall of the elevator, she could see Royal Guards scrambling frantically in the crystal lobby just before the elevator door closed. She removed her gloves, searched for her hip pocket, and conjured a key card to her room. 

_Ding._

"Madame, we are here." The elevator door slid open gracefully. 

Uriko quickly grabbed her snowboard and dashed down the vividly decorated hallway, her snowboarding boots tapping loudly on the scarlet carpet. At the end of the hallway, she slid her key card in a slot, pushed the door open, jumped in, and slammed the door open. After a second of hesitation, she jammed a chair under the doorknob. A quick survey of her lavish, luxurious VIP room turned out to be catastrophic. 

"Oh great! I didn't pack up yet!" She spend the next few minutes scrambling around her room, shoving her clothing and other accessories into a backpack. 

When she shoved the last of her luggage into her backpack and forcibly zipped it, footsteps echoed from the hallway. They were onto her. Moving at alerting speed, Uriko quickly slipped her arms through the thickly padded straps of her backpack and tightened it. Grabbing her snowboard, she quickly dashed for the balcony facing the virgin side of the mountain with her goggle dangling from her neck. She had left her scarf back down on the other side of the mountain, and the toque sat untouched in another room of the suite, but she wouldn't need them anyway. The door jingled. Uriko now stood on the balcony, facing the restricted remote area of the mountain. Hastily strapping on her snowboard and goggle, she sat on the railing with her feet dangling forty metres above the snowy, flawless slope beneath her. Behind her, the door busted open and her pursuers stormed in. Without waiting for the order from Kawa, the guards charged for her while the feline zoanthrope smiled innocently and flashed a peace sign. The reason why became apparent when the leader crashed headfirst into a window door and bounced off it. 

_Royal Guards, more like Bumbling Guards. How much did Baz waste on training those idiots?_

"See you guys later!" She waved, and pushed herself off the railing. 

The cold air howled around her furiously, stinging her exposed skin, but she enjoyed the coldness of the Icion climate. Plus, she was only getting warmed up. The real escape was just before her, as the snowy slope below the elegant crystal hotel rushed up eagerly to meet her. Buckling her slender knees to a light crouch, Uriko landed on the slope with such force that she lost control for a second, but quickly regained it and was zooming down the nigh-vertical slope. 

"Ohhh yeeaaaahhh!!!!" She cried out in extreme joy, her braid parallel to the slope as she bombed down. 

Quickly she looked back over her shoulder, and found the brightly-dressed Royal Guards pursuing her on their own magically created snowboards of ice. Captain Kawa was at the back of the flock, yelling orders through the shrilling air. She stuck her tongue out, and quickly occupied herself with the landscape speeding before her. Crouching down slightly on the snowboard, she accelerated, but the Royal Guards were abrupt to adapt as well. When she looked back again, she saw that they had a silver net, each of them holding a corner except for the captain. It was the very same trick they used to capture her two years ago, when she was on her third attempt to escape down the slope just beside Baz's castle. 

That trick isn't gonna work on me anymore. Uriko shrugged, and both hands reached back and patted the side pocket of her blue backpack. From the side pocket, she pulled out two red cylindrical metallic objects with a pin on each of the top. Casually flicking the pins off the objects that were the size of her hands with her thumbs, she tossed them over her shoulders without even looking back. Less than a second, after the silver net ensnared the objects, an explosion told Uriko of the detonation of the smoke and sound grenades. When she looked back, a red cloud had engulfed several of the Royal Guards, causing those in the front of the flock to trip. Bombing down the slope at over forty kilometres per hour, it was hard to not start a chain reaction when the group of twenty wasn't that far apart. However, eleven, including Kawa himself, remained chasing their princess. 

"Do you ever give up!?" She looked back once more, and her hands clasped together as she mouthed words. 

_Ka… Ramayaza… Izibiku… Now, was that bika or rika?_ She went with the latter, and thrust her hands in the direction of her pursuers. Nothing happened. 

_Dammit, it was bika! Karamayazaizibiku!_ She thrust her hands again, and this time something happened. A thin cloud of mist appeared and disappeared within a blink of an eye. Now her pursuers were closer. 

_More energy! Dammit dammit! I'm not going to let them catch me! Okay… girl, just concentrate… Concentrate all the energy into your hands…_ Someone grabbed her shoulder, and it felt a bit _too_ close to invading her privacy. 

"YOU PERVERT!" Without even thinking, she angrily lashed out a backhand and smashed into the face of a hapless Royal Guard. A futile scream as the man suddenly found himself ragdolling down the face of the mountain, everyone else passing him and his bones whining loudly. 

_Dammit, that pervert… Okay… Another down, ten more to go… Concentrate…_

"Here! Eat my Ice Arrow Barrage!" She thrust an open palm at her pursuers. Forming quickly out of ice vapor, a volley of arrows shot out from her palm and aimed for Kawa… only the ice arrows were only one inch long and bounced off the law enforcers' armor laughably. 

She repeated the spell again, this time she could see that her pursuers were only several metres away. 

_No way… I'm not going back to that hellish place! No way I'm going to be stuck sitting around doing nothing, waiting for some poor girl to serve me, no way I'm going to miss all the excitement of being just a normal girl, no way I'm going to wear those grabby dresses, no way I'm going to stop snowboarding… No way I'm going to marry some stupid jerk who I don't even know just because of some STUPID tradition!_

"Tell my father I'm not going to marry some jerks!" She cried out, and rammed her palms behind her, closing her eyes in desperate hope. 

Kawa's eyes widened in horror and his mouth opened soundlessly. Several dozen ice arrows quickly formed, and they were not of the pathetic scale before. The arrows were easily over one metres long, and several inches thick. He didn't know that her princess was even capable of creating ice arrows of such damaging size. He raised his hands, but was unable to finish his indication to retreat before the arrows erupted in all direction behind her. As the arrows flew through the shrilling air, the Royal Guards were forced to fall and press their bodies against the speedy ground, rubbing on their armor like sandpaper on a piece of wood. Kawa was the last one to hit the ground, and suffered gashes on his face. 

Uriko expected several hands to grab her at the same time, and they'd pull her off the board, but it didn't come. She realized that she was still zooming down the slope. Out of curiosity, she slowly opened her eyes and found all of her pursuers tumbling hard far behind her. 

_I did it?_

Something came to her throat. 

_I did it… I did it!_

Without slowing down, she threw her hands into air and cheered. The celebration didn't last long. A loud, low rumbling sound reached her sharp eras, drowning out the wailing wind. The feline zoanthrope looked back and found a wall of snow crashing, following her… 

"AVALANCHE!" She yelled instinctively, and quickly accelerated in a race against the roaring fury of Mother Nature. Icy rocks rolled, bounced, and crashed thunderously behind her, threatening to devour the girl for its appetizer. 

Her chocolate eyes searched frantically for a shelter, and found none as she narrowly kept her lead over the snowslide. Suddenly, something caught her eye. A long way before her, she saw a person standing on a black rock jutting out of a flat. What made the person hard to see was that he or she was dressed in pure white garment, camouflaging to the environment perfectly. Yet, the clothing seemed to shine, the person seemed to be an angel… Then, the person was no longer here, as if he or she simply vaporized into thin air. 

"Don't tell me it's some angel taking me to heaven already!" Uriko moaned in despair, but dashed for where the person was anyway, with an unstoppable monster on her tail. 

Without a warning, Uriko fell into a hole, missing the avalanche by an extremely narrow margin. Screaming, she found herself falling down an unbelievably large, hollow ice cavern. It was so large that she was falling for five seconds, and she was still crashing down toward the ice floor. An ice spire seemed extraordinarily interested in kissing her, and she widened her eyes in anticipation of her gruesome death… And she stopped falling. 

Suspended in mid-air, with the icy spike merely inches from her face. 

_Telekinesis!?_

Then, slowly she was moved away and placed gently on the ground by an invisible hand. Sitting down on the ground with her heart begging to erupt out of her chest, she panted for air for several long minutes before she looked up. Looking for the hole that she entered the strangely lit cavern, she found none. The ceiling of the cave was smooth and flawless, but there was no sign of a hole she could have fallen through. Slowly, she looked around for her savior. 

_Where am I? Who save me? Was it that person?_

"Anyone?" Her trembling voice echoed. 

_It was an angel… No, Riko, you aren't making sense. Angels are supposed to be Angelus, the race that sacrificed themselves to extinction… 30,000 years ago… And they were merely us just like zoanthropes and humans…_

She looked ahead of her, and found herself staring into a pair of innocent, violet eyes. Jumping back a bit, she realized that the owner of the eyes was a young, slender boy—one that couldn't look any older than eight years old. He was dressed in a robe of pure white that seemed oversized for him, with the sleeves reaching approximately his knees and the hood covered half of his back. A black, star-shaped medallion dangled from a thin silver chain around his slender neck. His hair was soft, very light brown, but they were a bit unruly and almost covering his ears. His skin was very pale, as if he hadn't been exposed to the sunlight for his life, yet he looked active and very much healthy. 

"Miss? Did I scare you? I'm sorry!" The boy said with a high-pitched voice, his soft expression purely of innocence. 

_Who's that boy? He saved me? _"…It's okay… Where… am I?" She removed her goggle. 

The young boy let out a sigh of relief, and his face lit up. "Welcome to my home! I had to take you in, since you where chased by that avalanche!" 

"Thanks." Uriko smiled, let out her own breath of relief, and patted the boy's head. Slowly, she took off her snowboard while the boy watched her curiously, apparently he hadn't seen a visitor for a long time. She reached out a hand. "I'm Uriko Nonomura. Thank you very much for saving me! If it weren't for you, I might have been dead by now!" 

The boy took her hand happily and shook it with both of his small hands. "My name's Justice! Nice to meet you too!" 

The boy eagerly helped the older girl stand up, and she realized the boy was only slightly taller than her waist. Taking her backpack, she asked the boy about the whereabouts of his parents. 

"My parents? They're long gone, sis. I live here with my brother, Crimson! Would you like to meet him?" 

Maybe Crimson can lead me out of this place… The boy's quite cute, though. I wonder why he'd live here in such a remote place. 

"Sure!" She nodded, and was pulled to another cavern by the boy. 

She stepped into another cavern, almost as large as the one before. However, the first sight in the new room made her drop her snowboard. The wall on the other side of the small doorway was enormous, and she could see the massive object behind the wall. Sealed inside the wall, was a titanic, dark humanoid shape curled in fetus position. The shape didn't move, almost like a oversized corpse. Uriko noticed that the skin of the shape wasn't really skin, but rather large carapaces, almost mechanical. A quick estimation revealed the shape would be over forty metres tall if it stands straight. She couldn't see the face of the giant, but the sight left her speechless. 

_It… It couldn't be…_

"What's wrong?" Justice tugged at her hand. "This is my brother, Crimson! Right now he's sleeping." 

"…how long had he been sleeping?" She stammered. 

"Since the end of Draconian War, exactly 30,121 years, seven months, and thirteen days ago." He looked a bit confused. "Or was that 30,111 years ago?" 

_Over 30,000 years!? That means…_

"…you were at the Draconian War!?" The girl jumped back in shock. 

"Yes! Guess who am I!" The boy leaped into air energetically. 

_But he looks only eight years old…_ A thought struck Uriko hard. "You're the Child Dragonslayer!" 

"Bingo! That's me! The Child Dragonslayer, Justice! You're real smart, sempai!" 

Suddenly, the cat zoanthrope's knees felt weak, and she quickly dropped to her knees and bowed to the Child Dragonslayer. She couldn't believe it, not only she had been saved by one of the legends of the World, she had been honored to be treated as a senior and allowed to see the very bio-mechanical weapon which the Child Dragonslayer fought alongside with! The boy only looked confused and nervously helped her to stand up. 

"What's up with the formality!? I'm only a kid!" 

The girl nodded. _A Dragonslayer!? One of the Eight Dragonslayers who ended the Draconian War by slaying millions of dragons, and ended the war in just one glorious attack!? A close friend and comrade of Longinus, the Angelus Dragonslayer who paid an expensive price to bring peace between humans and dragons!? It all seemed so hard to believe, that she would be that lucky! The boy who looked and acted only eight years old, was actually over 30,000 years ago without the slightest trace of aging! _It all seemed so hard to believe to the fugitive as the thoughts struck her like a lightning bolt, and the world seemed to be spinning all around her… 

"Miss Uriko!? You okay!?" 

* * * * * 

When she came to, she was lying on a bed of ice with all of her clothing intact. The only thing removed was her backpack, which leaned against the side of bed. Slowly, she looked around in the large cave, different from where she met Crimson and the one where she crashed into a Dragonslayer's home. Groaning, she began to embrace the fact that she just met a Dragonslayer, although a headache hurt from the shock and awe. 

"Sempai? Are you feeling better now?" The Child Dragonslayer's voice was small, but warm. She turned to find him holding an ice tray carrying a ceramic cup of steaming tea. "Here, you should feel better!" 

She paused for a brief second, then reached for the cup. "Domo arigato." Surprisingly, the green tea wasn't too hot and went down with a pleasant sensation. 

"Welcome! You should feel rejuvenated now!" He was right. Perhaps a special recipe, since he was the healer of the Dragonslayers? 

Uriko, feeling happy, jumped off the ice bed and grabbed her backpack. "Thank you for everything! Unfortunately, I have to go now." 

"Escaping the Royal Guards, Princess Sherrine?" 

That made her stepped back. 

"I'm sorry! But my telepathic abilities have gotten out of control." The kid realized his mistake and bowed apologetically. 

"It's okay… Please just don't tell my father." 

"Consider it done! I'll help you because you're my first guest in a very long time! You know, you can't leave this place without a teleportation spell. Take my hand, I'll take you as far as my power can go. To the border city!" 

* * * * * 

Uriko looked around her in amazement, unbelievably she found herself in the city sitting directly on the Icion border leading to Verselium. The Child Dragonslayer was right beside her, smiling at her. He handed her a small leather pouch. 

"Take this as a token of my gratitude! Farewell and enjoy yourself, sempai!" He waved cheerfully at her, and disappeared in a flash of bluish light before she could refuse his gift. 

Finding herself alone in the street filled with bustling people, the feline zoanthrope curiously opened the pouch and found gold pieces inside, with diamond and gemstones as well—for a value of approximately over one hundred thousand dollars. Unable to contain her joy, she jumped into air with her arms over her hand after stowing the pouch away in her backpack. The elegant gate leading out of Icion was within sight. 

_First, I better disguise myself!_ She thought, thanked the boy in her heart, and quickly dashed for the nearest hotel. 

She didn't notice a black glyph on the back of her hand, even after she took off her gloves and cast them aside… 

-----   
**Author's Note:** Wow. That's a quickie... That's the Uriko that we all know and adore. You all will get to know more about the Dragonslayers, the Draconian War, the Angelus, and such in later chapters! I hope you guys enjoy this! Now it's time to work on Yugo. Heh... Just wait for the next chapter, titled "Timid Fear", and you'll see what Techs are capable of, as well as a sneak peek of the power of another Dragonslayer! >_> Hopefully, I won't be overdoing this story, then again, I have SO many things thought of for this epic when I was (and am still) RPing with Kenji, Uriko, and two of my own characters. Just sit back and enjoy the following epic of fantasy, action, drama, and ultimately, romance! *coughshopefullyIwon'thavetoworkonaprequelconcerningtheDraconianWarthatlastedfortenthousandyearscoughs* 


	4. Timid Fear

**Okay, this chapter might be a bit rushed, however, since I SO want to get things going, I ought to finish the next few intros quickly so we can finally kick into some action and loving. -.- Such a shame that I have to re-introduce the characters since it's a totally different universe...******

**Chapter 3: Timid Fear**

"What do you mean that those priests brought in are just guides?" 

"That was the past tradition of Elements, it's a whole new generation, especially after Draconian War." 

"Why the hell you didn't tell me earlier!?" 

"Because I just learned it myself, but I'm not one who show the way for them. The Elements' way have been revised since him." 

"Him? The one who died in end of Draconian war?" 

"Affirmative." 

"Okay. Lemme repeat it again: Those damn priests that I brought in are just guides, and they actually have no powers over Elements!? The shrine was just a fake?" 

A snicker. "Correct. I am honestly astonished that it took you some time to grasp the piece of reality. Although they do not store the lore in your electronic data storage devices, I assumed you will unveil the change before me, since you're genetically engineered… Sadly, I realize my assumption was not a correct one." 

"Well, then, I'll just correct the mistake. Even a computer needs the correct input for the right output." 

"Remember you have my permission, I want you to assassinate them with any means possible, and I will show you the path to your aspiration. And I will open the Gate for you. All you need to do is to find the pieces of the grand plan before they do." 

"Then this matter is solved, now get out of my ears, I have a prey to hunt now." 

* * * * * 

Another kingdom away from Icion, Tech stood in eternal gloominess thanks to Draconian War. The Kingdom had solely one city, and that metropolis alone spanned over millions of square kilometres, covering more than nine-tenth of the land the Kingdom of Thunder was given. Beneath the blanket of black cloud, the dense forest of brightly lit buildings, all literally over two kilometres tall and licking the sky, buzzed with dancing spotlights and aerial transport vehicles of miniature sizes. Neon advertising billboards marked all buildings, mixed with holographic advertisements of extravagant devices with little actual uses and propaganda persuading the citizens of the colossal city to either join the law or criminals. On the higher level of the City, people dined and chatted in civilized, formal and expensive manner. In the medium level of the City, most of the citizens were still at their not-so fruitful work, but enjoying their simple lives among technologies. On the bottom of the cities, crimes paid in enormous scale, and even the law itself was corrupted among the mindless rave party raging on illegally. However, below that, under the poor ground of homeless, weapons were being designed and created by independent clans. Some finished before the law's arm reached out and gave them a slapping; some didn't even left the drawing board. 

Underground, Yugo just finished his shift as the test pilot of a small, top-secret government funded project, that was merely a corrupt excuse to participate in the arm race against those who defies the law. Aboveground, the wolf zoanthrope was a professional boxer who barely graduated. 

A female computerized voice gently told him of the end of the day's testing, and he dispelled the holographic consoles with a press of button. Removing his visor as the cockpit chair slowly extended outside, stopping just beside a metallic catwalk. The wolf zoanthrope nodded to the waiting crew and hopped onto the catwalk from his confining chair. Stretching his arms, he strolled down the lengthy catwalk, and gave the titanic hangar one more look. The dark hangar, one of titanic size, was easily over one hundred metres tall and five times wide. The empty, lifeless was the very nursery of the twin prototypes of the latest and perhaps the darkest production of Tech meches. Two sleek meches, almost exactly same to each other, kneeled in the hangar side-to-side with a dozen catwalks beside them and hundreds of wires extending from all the walls to the reflective armors of the dual weapons of mass destruction. Yugo was the assigned test pilot of the red mech named Remorseless, while another test pilot manned the silver twin of Remorseless, Dauntless. 

"Good test, guys. The duo might be ready for their very first real flight in a week." A woman's voice emanated from Yugo's headset. 

"Yes m'am, I believe that call for a party. Don't forget to order the erotic dancers." He let out a wolfish smile and stepped into a white corridor, which bend into a junction. 

Continuing walking away from the hangar, the other test pilot appeared from the other corridor leading to Dauntless. All Yugo knew about the other pilot was that he's called Omega Zero, and he was working in a very high echelon of the Tech government. That was it. Perhaps he was just one of the rich snobs who bribed their way into this dark project. The test pilot's face had always been hidden from him by a black full-face helmet that was somewhat shaped like those of an eagle's head. Black tinted glass prevented Yugo's dark brown eyes locking with the other test pilot's eyes. The only part of his face exposed was his mouth, lower jaw, and chin. 

"Hey, don't you ever get tired of that stupid helmet? Testing period's over." Yugo said casually, always having been itching to find out what the mysterious pilot looked like for the last three months. 

"My face's not exactly welcomed, so I prefer to keep this on. Plus, I wouldn't want to scare all those pretty ladies away with my deformed face." He only raised a hand. 

"Bleh, just that you always look as if you're in a war." 

"Perhaps I am." The two parted way at the next junction they walked to. 

While their backs were turned to each other, Yugo decided to drop by the Bottom of the City and have a drink at one of those bars that always seemed to have a fight. Plus the twenty-four years old felt itching to throw some punches since his broken arm recovered from the last fight. Tossing his visor into his locker, he put on his citizen clothing and took the elevator by himself. As he waited the lift to reach the ground level, he anticipated the oncoming real life testing… 

_Just another week… No more virtual environment. The real thing's always better._

* * * * * 

Nursing his right hand, Yugo chuckled in pleasure. He'd just knocked out a record number of five teeth by just one single punch. It was a nice feeling, especially when the man was looming over him. Shaking his reddened hand, the wolf zoanthrope nonchalantly walked down the gloomy, quiet street looking for the nearest lift to raise him to civilization. Drug addicts slept on the side of the streets, some able to wake up, some would never wake up. Bums huddled around battered, burning drums. Without much consideration for the poor people, he only looked around him occasionally. He didn't bother anyone else, so nobody bothered him. Beggars were already asleep in their lustful dreams, and addicts of virtual realities were still trapped within their very own illusions. He walked through a section of the street filled with prostitutes, but their drug-filled and badly scarred bodies were more than enough to turn down the wolf zoanthrope. Taking only very few glances in hope for a flawless body, he found only disgusting disappointment and cruised away from them. 

_Just another one of those nights… Where I get lost trying to find a damn lift…_ His eyes wandered, and he caught something out of the corner of an eye. 

There was a short scream, and he caught a shape dragging away another struggling shape into a darker alley. He ran a hand through his ear-length brown hair, a finger tracing the cross-shaped scar on his forehead very briefly. 

_Perhaps if I save that gal, I might at least attract some police and I'll get a free ride home…_

Desperately wanting to return to the cozy territory of his apartment, he sprinted and followed the shapes into the alley. However, he found them waiting for him in the shadows. The man had the battered and struggling prostitute in a chokehold, with a hand applied over her mouth. He seemed to be waking for Yugo. 

"Hey you! Let her go!" He nodded at the whore's fearful eyes. "Don't worry, kitten, I'll save you and give you a nice, warm home." 

The latter part was an outright lie, but he didn't think the despicable whore would even care. 

The shadowy man remained silent. 

"I guess you aren't leaving me much of a choice." Yugo drew his miniature handgun, trained the energy-based weapon on the would-be killer or rapist, and bluffed. "Now please let that slut go, don't try anything drastic. I'm a gifted sharpshooter, and I can blow your brain out even with my eyes closed." 

The masculine shape only snickered. "I see you couldn't recognize me, wolfboy." 

"Whoever may you be, and don't call me that." 

"Funny, we just saw each other three hours ago. You were commenting on my stupid helmet, wolfboy." 

"Oh. It's you." Yugo wasn't very much surprised, just that he couldn't care any less. "What brought you here?" 

"You." 

"What are you gonna do with me? Kill me?" 

"Actually, I was thinking of turning you into a nice dish of sashimi for my dogs." The man codenamed Omega Zero took a step forward, pushing the whore away. 

"Hrmph, I'll just blow your brain out of your stupid, moronic helmet…" 

"Then do it." 

The mysterious man continued to walk toward the wolf zoanthrope, with a sly smile on his unveiled lips. Meanwhile, the desperate female was struggling to stand up, well out of crossfire. 

_It's not like anyone will find the body anyway. Just tell the story right, plus I've got a witness that can testify in my favor._

"Such a shame to lose you. But they'll find another replacement." 

With that impulsive thought, Yugo squeezed the trigger. The gun glimmered in a green hue, and an aquamarine beam shot out, destined for the helment. Yugo's smile lingered, then slowly disappeared. His shot didn't kill the fellow test pilot, but rather, it went into the forehead of the hooker who the man just tossed aside like a ragdoll. Yugo's frown widened in horror as the hooker's head limped lifelessly. The man chuckled. 

"I thought you were gonna blow my brain out of my stupid, moronic helmet." 

_But she was out of the way when I fired!_ Yugo found out why, as the hooker's body collapsed to the ground. A metallic tentacle with four talons on its end clicked, and retracted back into the man's right gauntlet. _Grappling arm!?_

"You ought love nanotechnology combined with neurotechnology… Thanks to the little neural implant I created for myself, I can manipulate my weapons at will. By my weapons, I mean my gauntlets and several other shining things I didn't bring with me." 

Yugo fired again, but it bounced off a reddish force field and struck a wall instead. 

_Shit, portable bubble shield generator? This isn't even available to elite soldiers!_

"Say, you wanted police attention, correct?" Omega Zero nodded, and he slowly faded away like a chameleon, apparently of a cloaking device. "So I called them." 

Yugo's hand was actually shaking and his forehead perspired. He had faced quite a bunch of opponents, but only in a fair and physical battle. Never he had been in a circumstance when he was facing an opponent who clearly has far superior advantage over him. "W-well, they'll find that I'm not the killer!" 

"You sure? It's your own weapon that killed her, after all. Plus since I'm cloaked right now, I don't think they have anyone else to nail on. Did I mention that I am actually in the police force? That I am actually one of the highest profile the city has beside the Dragonslayer? That I am just below the highest echelon of the military command chain?" 

_Shit._ The wolf zoanthrope looked around, and he could begin to hear sirens closing in… 

"You better run, I gave the Dragonslayer a direct call." 

"Holy moly! Not HER!" Yugo looked at the invisible man in wide-eyed horror. "What have I done to make you sic her on me!?" 

"Let's just say I'm addicted to killing. I'm out, but I'll be watching you…" 

A loud crashing announced that Nano had arrived. Panicking, he dropped his gun and dashed to the middle of the street. From the far end of the street, he could see the shape of the Cyborg Dragonslayer's infamous Assimilator, Nano. The mechanical beast was only ten metres long, but it seemed even more intimidating than that. Nano's shape could be seen, almost like a four-legged spider with boxy body and limbs. Overall, it looked weaponless, but Yugo had seen it in action and learned several aspects over the television. Beneath the brown armor were choke-full of squirming wires that moved in such manner that it seemed almost organic. The seemingly alive wires seemed to have infinite length, as they could wrap themselves around and drill into any machines and transfer their control over to Nano's organic computer, which was linked with the Cyborg Dragonslayer's own neural implant. 

Although from a far distance, the massive beast hesitated, and Yugo knew that it was scanning the environment with its single red, unblinking eye. Perspiring profusely, he quickly turned and ran down the street away from the law-enforcing machine. Without looking back, he hoped for an escape, but he hadn't heard of a case of a successful escape from the Dragonslayer herself. After a minute into his dash of panic, a series of loud crashing sounds exploded behind him. When he looked back, the monster was stomping toward him, its face blank. For a machine of such size and primitive design, Nano moved surprisingly quick even through its thick, burly legs crashed and destroyed with every fulminating step. The Cyborg Dragonslayer never gets old, even after over 30,000 years of existence. Soon enough, Yugo found that Nano had already entered him into its attack range. Clicking, Nano's boxy 'jaw' dropped open and innumerable maroon living wires squirmed out like serpents, reaching for him and crying out. 

_Oh no oh no I'm gonna get caught!_

Out of desperation, he veered off to right and dashed into an abandoned building, narrowly missing the aim of the serpentine wires. Nano stopped and skidded as the wolf zoanthrope disappeared inside the building, its unblinking eye staring into the tiny doorway for one moment, then stomped off, shaking the ground with each of its powerful steps. 

* * * * * 

"Huff, huff…" Yugo ran out the building on the other side, to a street occupied with homeless and drunkards. 

The Dragonslayer never let her targets go, so Yugo kept running. He still could hear Nano's menacing stomps getting closer, but when he looked around, he couldn't see it. Then it all quieted down. Did he just escape the wrath of the Dragonslayer? No… A thought struck his mind like a lightning bolt. He remembered that he saw Nano climbing walls like a spider, and leaping down agilely. He stopped running, and Nano crashed just before him, sending a cloud of concrete flying and the people screaming and running in chaos. For a split second, he stared into the mechanical beast's red, soulless eye, and he dashed to his side again, once again evading an onslaught, this time he ducked beneath a swipe of Nano's thick front right leg. 

He dashed down an alley, his eyes unable to peel away from the beast behind him. When looked ahead, he held his hands before him just as he was about to run into a metallic door—a lift! Pressing the button frantically, he groaned when the computer blankly stated: Please wait for thirty seconds while the car arrives… 

_I don't even have five seconds!_ Unable to fit into the alley, the artificial monster was slowly stretching its long tongue of living wires toward him. 

Fearfully, he hammered the button over and over again while banging a fist against the door futilely. 

_Dammit! I have to get in! I have to get in! I have to get in! I must escape—_

Suddenly, a strange sensation overcame him. It felt as if his entire body had been shocked very lightly, but there was no pain, just a strange tingling and a blue, fuzzy flash overwhelmed his vision. Then, it seemed as if his body was breaking down atomically. 

_Has it gotten to me?_

But Nano was staring into an empty dead-end, its tongue unable to find anything. 

* * * * * 

Slowly, the fuzz dissipated, and he was staring down the alley, at Nano as it retracted its maroon tongue of wires. He felt funny, because what he saw wasn't through his eyes, rather, he seemed to be viewing the alley on a monitor, with a bit of static. 

What… What happened? Almost feeling as if he just urinated in his pants, he turned around, but couldn't. He felt for his body, but he felt no body. He felt that none of his muscles was obeying him. He tried to look around again, this time he concentrated harder and he saw a strange environment. He was surrounded in an odd bluish void dimension, with bright, almost holographic letters, numbers, and random images flying all around him in an orderly pattern. A path seemed to have illuminated itself for Yugo, but when he tried to move by moving his legs, he couldn't. Something began to dawn on him. 

_…I'm… actually inside the cyberspace?_

Speechlessly, he tried to move again, only commanding his entire body to move, and he did. He didn't move in the desirable pace, either, but rather, he found himself speeding, zooming down the paths of the cyberspace with all sort of data flying all around him. Momentarily, he lost his orientation, and felt lost, but when he told his body to stop, he stopped. He looked down, and saw that he didn't even has a body. 

_…but it… isn't possible!!_

And yet, it all seemed so clear when a familiar array of number and letters crawled past him in air. It was clearly the internet serial number of his own apartment. Curiously and somewhat feeling scary, he 'reached' out for the number and concentrated on it. His vision fuzzed around him again, and this time he found himself back in his home. Dazed and confused, he slowly stood up from lying on the floor in front of the computer. He could feel his muscles now, and flexed his fingers, confirming that it was real. He quickly scanned his body as well, and found it complete, along with his clothing. 

"…wha-what happened to me?" He stared at his own hands in disbelief—when a loud rapping on the door interrupted his thought. 

_Oh shit! They've come here to confiscate my home!_

Quickly dashing for his computer, he grabbed its powerless console and concentrated hard, as if he was trying to pry open the case with his mind just like when he got into the cyberspace. He didn't have time to think, but his vision fuzzed again—and he saw the police breaking into his suite and people stormed in, searching the room, but they didn't seem to notice him. That was because he was back into the cyberspace. Wandering confused, he retreated away, and stopped in the middle of the information highway, pondering. 

_How did I get such ability? Why am I seeing everything as if I'm in a virtual reality…_

He couldn't think of an answer. 

_Why is that guy trying to frame me? Kill me? Pitting me against the Cyborg Dragonslayer? Who is he?_

No answer. 

_What can I do now? Where I can escape? If I'm gonna run, how?_

This time, he had an answer. 

* * * * * 

"Ugh!" 

Feeling disoriented jumping back into reality, he stumbled along the catwalk leading to the massive chest of Remorseless. When his mind pulled itself together, he looked up at the sleek, featureless head of Remorseless. The closest thins resembling its head would be a dragon, but its geometry was clearly humanoid, with a pair of titanic propulsion wings folded neatly on its back. Stumbling toward the dark, waiting cockpit, he looked across the hangar and realized that Dauntless was missing—in its place was just nothing, and the catwalks on its side had been tore off. Dauntless' companion rifle was gone as well. 

"Well… If this is it, let it be it." 

Feeling intended to find the man named Omega Zero, he hopped into the cockpit chair, although that was all it was. A black leather armchair with shoulder straps and footholds, and two control sticks on the arms. The consoles were off, so the cockpit seemed dark. Running a hand along the side of an arm, Yugo found four small buttons and entered a certain order. The cockpit lit up and the chair was retracted into the chest cavity of the sleek mech. As soon as the chest closed itself up behind protective armor, holographic consoles lit up before him. Although they were holograms, Yugo could actually touch them and input orders. The optical sensors were the first to turn on; images of the hangar surrounded him, accurately reflected by the spherical cavity for maximum vision mobility of the pilot. Pressing a few more buttons, the muscle wires were activated and ready to mobilize the mech. Another sequence, the pair of wings emitted a brilliant bluish light and slowly unfurled, pulling wires away from Remorseless' body. Alarms blared inside the hangar, as Remorseless slowly stood up under Yugo's control, with its clawed fingers wrapped around the handle of its rifle. Yugo looked up, and saw the hangar ceiling opening slowly without even needing the pilot's request. 

_Funny, the ceiling doesn't open without consent from control room. Must be that Omega Zero…_

The entire hangar shook as the pair of brilliant wings was extended to its length, generating powerful gust of air around the hangar. Strapping on his harnesses, Yugo looked up into the dark, forever cloudy sky of Tech as the ceiling was fully opened. Another alarm blared loudly, and Yugo was immediately alerted. 

_Damn! He must've caused the activation of Remorseless to trigger the self-destruction system of the base!_

Without wasting anymore time, the sleek mech shot upward, as the base's self destructive system activated, incinerating rooms after rooms. The wires attached to the skin of the mech snapped from it like guitar strings. Dusts and particles flew as the catwalks were seared and ripped off in the ascention. It wasn't a very long trip to surface, and Remorseless was out of the shaft faster than expected. It then stopped, hovering above the open shaft. Yugo could see a flash of orange at the dark bottom. 

_Great, what now? Not only he's implicated a murder charge and forced me to run away from law. Now he just pinned another bounty on my head._

He looked around, and realized he was in the middle of the metropolis, far on the bottom of the City. He'd stay here, as he'd face less opposition, despite being easier to be spot. However, if he went above the City, he would be assaulted not only by battlecruisers and swarmed by fighter ships, but as well as the city's self-activating cannons. Quickly he entered the shortest course for Ender's Zone, the devastated outskirts of the City. A series of holographic box appeared, forming a tunnel leading the shortest path to the outside of the city. 

_Okay, just like in virtual reality…_

He pushed the control sticks forward cautiously, and the machine followed his command responsively by flying in the direction he desired slowly. 

_It should be a okay…_

A red blip on the radar made his heart jump. 

"OH DRACO!!! NOT HER!!!" 

Unfortunately, the Dragonslayer had found him, and she didn't show signs of giving up. Yugo looked at the rear-view screen of the mech as it accelerated, weaving through the dense forest of buildings agilely. He couldn't see anything but buildings blurring behind him, then he saw her. There was a white blur on the screen that seemed determined on following him, and it was jumping up and down while it actually was catching up a speeding mech by running along the walls of buildings. It was just the Dragonslayer herself, but Nano couldn't be far behind. Yugo's heart was threatening to rip itself out of its place when he could see the body of the Dragonslayer clearly. 

The Dragonslayer was dressed from head to tow in an attire of white so pure that it seemed to be glowing, although the garments fall into the category of a ninja—that was what she was, a kunoichi, a female ninja. Her ninja gi completely hid her metallic skin, but the slender frame continued to resemble a woman. Her entire head was covered in a fabric mask, her eyes behind a one-piece pink goggle. She didn't appear to carry any weapon, but Yugo knew better. Attempting to throw off the famous law enforcer of Tech, Remorseless suddenly turned direction sharply, but the Dragonslayer had no problem leaping from one side of the building to the opposite side. She didn't even need to use her concealed wings as her feet seemed to stick well on the walls. Although the Dragonslayer was less than six feet tall and looked unbelievably puny compared to the forty-metre mech, she was superior in power. 

_Huh?_

Suddenly and without a warning, the small female ninja dashed past the speeding mech and leaped into its path. Before the two collided, she quickly extended a hand that still looked humanoid and organic, and an one-foot long bladeless sharkskin hilt slipped into her waiting hand. With a miniature thought from its wielder, a silver blade suddenly extended itself from the hilt, reaching a length of mere three feet. Moving at such speed that few could match, she reared the sword, and hurled it at the mech while she was still airborne. The sword crashed into the plasmatic shield of the mech, but surprisingly, it didn't bounce off. Rather, it remained stuck in the shield, its metallic blade still a long way from scratching Remorseless' scarlet paint. Before Yugo could even realize that the Dragonslayer had passed him, she collided with the mech in midair, with her limbs extended for the balance. Her right hand swiftly grabbed the hilt of the sword stuck into the shield and clenched to the mech's energy force field with her hands as well. 

_Unbelievable! She is actually holding on to a plasmatic shield!_

Minute orange electricity bolts danced from her hands and feet, but she didn't seem to notice as she began to channel purplish energy into her sword. The computer of Remorseless whined loudly of a weakening shield, despite the shield being the latest model and capable of sustaining several direct blasts. Yugo's hands trembled, unable to muster any confidence dealing against such a powerful opponent as she calmly ripped a rift into the shield inch by inch, using her other hand to pry the gap open. He found himself staring into the masked eyes of the Dragonslayer, projected into the cockpit. Then he found that the mech was flying on a course toward a building. Instinctively, he jerked the control sticks to right and the flying machine obeyed, although the zoanthrope's instinct was a bit slow. A section of the bubble shield touched the building. With a dazzling trail of glamorous golden sparks, a long groove burned into the side of the building before the defensive device shut itself down. Luckily, the Dragonslayer's back grinded the building, and she was no longer clinging to the mech like a spider. However, a new problem arose. Without a bubble shield, Remorseless was more vulnerable. 

The sleek machine continued to weave through the city as the red dot on the radar was rapidly fading away. Quickly it ascended into a massive tunnel in the middle of a rather large skyscraper. Yellowish fluorescent replaced the neon light of the city. As the mech sped through the long tunnel, the pilot let out a sigh of relieve as the Ender's Zone was only several kilometres past the tunnel and there was no red dot on the radar. He wiped his sweaty forehead as the end of the tunnel was just ahead… And Nano dropped into view without a warning, with a pair of propulsion wings attached to its back, as well as four extra arms dangling from the spider-like machine's 'cheeks'. Two of the arms were equipped with humanoid hands, the remaining with a pair of gatling cannons. The Dragonslayer was standing soundlessly on the Assimilator's head. 

_A sensory cloaking device!? They didn't show that on television!_

Silently, Nano opened fire. Searing bullets exploded through the air as orange flames licked the rotating barrels, unloading thousands of bullets in a short, successive burst. Remorseless had neither the time nor room to evade, so it ended up sustaining the bullets that struck its armor. The computer whined once more. 

_What choice do I have? Why do I have get stuck with such an opponent like her!? I'm just going to die anyway… Omega Zero… I have to get your ass for this…_

Desperately Yugo extended Remorseless' energy wristblades and rocketed toward the Dragonslayer while the crimson paint was being scrapped off. Still, it continued to close in on the Dragonslayer without signs of slowing down. With a loud screeching, the secret project crashed into the Dragonslayer, ramming both of its energy blades deep into the belly and pushing Nano back hard. As the two huddling meches crashed through buildings, Remorseless' blades were able to penetrate the thick belly of the Dragonslayer's smaller mech, but without any apparent effects. Even as it sustained most of the impact and continued to fire wildly, Nano quickly wrapped its burly legs and add-on arms around Remorseless and its jaw popped open again, the crimson wires slithering out to assimilate the state-of-art project. 

"I can't lose already—," Yugo scowled furiously, "—at least let me get my chance against that good for nothing son of a bitch!" 

The pilot reflexively thrust both of its energy blades upward and ripped through Nano's body easily, preventing the assimilation. Additional wires began to emerge from the wounds and their intention to wrap around their target was obvious. It was when Remorseless' companion rifle snapped into its right hand and rammed against the open belly of Nano. 

"EAT THIS!" He shouted angrily. 

It discharged. 

With a thunderous roar, a massive whitish beam erupted from the twin barrels of the energy rifle. Without even limiting its power, the onslaught ripped through Nano's body easily and continued to slice through buildings, fortunately without any other casualties since they were near Ender's Zone and the Bottom of the City. The blast was so powerful that even Remorseless itself recoiled in the middle of mach-speed flight. Nano's body broke into half a dozen larger pieces and fell apart literally. However, the Dragonslayer herself only sprung high into air, flipping and twisting through air gracefully as Remorseless shrank forcefully. During her somersault, her slender right arm quickly disassembled, rearranged, and reassembled the mechanical parts—taking on a new form of a cannon roughly as wide as her delicate arm. However, as she faced her target upside-down, her target system locked on to the recoiling mech within nanoseconds, and the arm cannon was fully charged. Remorseless' attack diminished just before she fired. 

Yugo only saw a brilliant purplish light, and suddenly he was pushed against the harnesses from behind as the Dragonslayer's own high-caliber energy wave crashed tremendously into Remorseless. The mech was suddenly knocked back several hundred metres, through the building that Nano was smashed through. A cloud of dust slowly engulfed the area as the Dragonslayer continued to fall, flipping her body and reverting her arm back to humanoid form. She landed beside Nano and aided in its self-repairing. 

"Ugh!" Remorseless crashed to a stop against another building. Due to its armor design and structure, the only thing that suffered was its shining paintwork, peeling off to reveal black metal beneath. 

Straining against the control sticks, Yugo grunted and focused on his task—to make it to Ender's Zone, and escaping from the dangerous lawful pursuer would be a thing of the past. It was time to take a short cut. Aiming the rifle through the forest of building, he set it to burst mode and squeezed the trigger. The whitish beam erupted out once more, this time it was longer and weaker. At the same time, Remorseless' wings kicked out a burst of energy and propelled the sleek mech forward hard. Even as the rifle continued to pulsate energy blasts, the mech charged forward hard as the weapon drilled a path through the forest of buildings, searing and destroying the lifeless bottoms of the city— And the forest came to an end. Bursting out of the last building, Remorseless was finally flying through a barren wasteland scattered by ruins. The Dragonslayer didn't even try pursuing him, but it was not what Yugo thought. 

Rather, it all had been a plan of grand scale, one that couldn't be created or executed by mere mortals. Although Omega Zero hadn't been aware of the plan of the Dragonslayers, the Dragonslayers knew about his plan long beforehand. However, both separate plans would come together in one most important time, a little over half a year later.   
  
* * * * * 

About ten minutes of cruising, Remorseless stopped in the moonlight and looked back at the city, now nothing more than a thick line of light at the horizon. Yugo sighed and rested his head on a hand regretfully. Now that he had calmed down, he reflected on the last thirty minutes and realized how stupid it was of him to run away! If he had stayed, he might have a chance of receiving the justice, but he chose to escape just because the Dragonslayer was onto him. Just because the damn bastard called himself the second highest commander of the military force! He was simply stumped by his own impulsive stupidity, but it was too late… Sighing regretfully, he thought about what he was going to do. 

_Sure, I can always head for Verselium and hide this mech somewhere…_

His thought was interrupted by a beep, an audio-only transmission. There was only one possibility. He opened the channel. 

"What do you want from me, you son of a bitch?" 

"You." Omega Zero snickered. 

"What do you mean when you want me? You want to kill me or something?" 

"Yes." 

"Tell me why. Why did you have to bother with such trouble to pinning the Dragonslayer on me?" 

"Let's just say that your body has something that I want, and not only I'll get what I want from your body, I'll also get a nice payment from a certain friend. For now, I like to toy around with you." 

_Because I can transport myself into the cyberspace?_

"You're hired to kill me?" A scowl. 

"Yes and no. Yes, I have been hired to kill you. No, I have been fully intended to hunt down your kinds long before I come across him." 

"Who is he?" 

"A valuable informant. You have no idea what I'm talking about?" 

"Look, I don't have a fucking idea of what the shit you want from me, but all I know you aren't getting it. Why don't you just cut the crap and tell me what the hell's going on!?" Yugo's knuckles threatened to crush the control sticks. 

A chuckle. "Wolfboy, you're really that stupid… But you'll find out soon enough." 

That was the end of the transmission, and Yugo was left in silence save for humming of Remorseless' systems. Busily contemplating, he decided to sneak over the border and began searching for the cloaking function in the mech's system. At the same time, a strange feeling nagged at his mind and a mark went unnoticed on the back of his left palm… 

-----   
**Author's Note:** Wheee, another intro's done. Bleh... now that this chappy's done, it's time to start the next one, named "Lost Reunion". I'm certain that some of you would pick on several things in this chapter, but just drop me a message and I'll see what I can do. Amen, the _epic_ should be able to really pick up after several chapters after the last intro... Let's hope I can get into *spoiler* the Second Siege of Draco ASAP. Yes, I am fully aware that you absolutely no idea about Draco, at least until the last intro. 


	5. Lost Reunion

**Yeppie... Here's the fourth introduction of TNE. Now I'm officially halfway through the introductions! (And I'm 1% completed with this epic...) ^_^ Drop by and R&R while you can? I'd like to know how to be write better beginnings, so your feedbacks are very important to me! Please...? *kitty eyes***

**Chapter 4: Lost Reunion**

The Kingdom of Serpentine existed within the sapphire of Ocean, virtually eye-to-eye with the free marine creatures of Draco. Alice watched enviously as an innocent fish swam lazily next to her window. The twenty-four years old nurse sat in her seat aboard the submarine of public transit with the purpose of people from the underwater cities to the surface and the opposite way. Although the Serpentine had gone up to the surface only a handful of times in her life, she wasn't nervous about emerging outside of the bubble-enveloped cities. 

"Excuse me, but your bag's in my seat." A young female voice asked politely and diverted Alice's attention from the soft window. 

"Oh, sorry." She looked at the voice's owner as she removed the aforementioned from the seat next to her. 

"It's okay." The owner of the voice only smiled as she shifted into her seat. 

Alice's neighbor had bright red irises just like her, but Alice was clearly the senior by a few years. The younger woman was dressed in loose, dark attire with black leather jacket, a tight navy blue tank top, and long beige pairs of baggy pants with the large cuffs covering most of her feet. The woman's hair was of a dark red, with two long ponytails pointing out in a fierce, flower-like manner. A wide collar of black leather wrapped itself around her neck, decorated with metallic studs. Although her skin looked somewhat albino, she looked very otherwise healthy. Alice could notice the contraction between herself and her neighbor. The nurse has shoulder-length dyed bluish hair with two pigtails, but dressed far less drastic than her neighbor. Although she wasn't wearing her nurse uniform, she felt like she was when she studied the younger girl's pale skin.__

"Just out of my curiosity, what are you going up for?" As red-haired girl spoke, the nurse noticed her unusually long and sharp canines. 

"Oh… I'm going to meet with my long lost sister." The rabbit zoanthrope replied with a smile. 

"Long lost sister? Good for you!" 

"What about you?" Without a warning, Alice began to see images of a large city, with a tower jutting out from its very center, like a pillar reaching up for the sky. Four shorter towers stood around the enormous tower, looming over the cities like four serene guardians. Dragons of all sorts were flying in the air; some dragons were ridden by humans, most likely demi-dragons and half-dragons. "You are going to the City of Dragon?" 

The young woman looked surprised, but pleased. "Yes, I'm going to Draco. Girl, you must be a telepathic!" 

"Actually…" Her voice trailed off in hesitation. "I just found out about those powers. I can't control them at will yet. I don't know what it means, just that sometimes I get images of other people's head, sometimes I hear the thoughts of people's minds…" She shook her head. 

"It can get pretty distracting when you can't control it, right?" A nod. "What's your job?" 

"A nurse?" 

"Ouch. I hope you aren't a surgeon nurse." 

"Fortunately, no." 

_Welcome aboard, people… Please buckle up. We are leaving the harbor in a minute._ The P.A system announced to the crowded submarine. 

"Nice talking to you! I'm Lucia!" 

"Alice. Alice Nonomura. It had been nice to meet you, too." 

The two spent the rest of the trip in silence. 

* * * * * 

_Please board the ship now… The ship is leaving for Verselium in thirty minutes…_

Alice dropped her luggage into the baggy cart destined for her ship. Her tired mind refreshed from the long submarine trip by the clear oxygen of surface. She admired the beautiful sky, gentle with fluffs of clouds, as she walked up the walkway to aboard the ship. The wind howled around her with a sensation she hadn't felt for a decade, a cool, free sensation as she leaned against the railing of the open deck. It had been so long since she had enjoyed the real sunlight. She studied the island that served as the above-water harbor of Serpentine. It was fairly small one; she could see half of its contour from the highest deck of the ocean liner. A small town settled itself just next to the forest that dominated most of the island, with people bustling to go underwater or to the mainland of Verselium. For a long time, Alice hadn't notice how good it felt to be able to see the horizon again, the fine line of the sky and the ocean drew in a perfect circle around her. It would be an arduous six hours long trip, but not because of the length. Occasionally, she glanced at couples huddling against the railing, admiring the sunrise in the natural scenery before them. 

"Hey." Lucia greeted Alice, holding an oversized cup of carbonated beverage. 

"Hey. I thought you would take the direct line to Draco." Verselium was in the opposite direction of Draco from Serpentine. 

"You missed that I'm going to Verselium to pick up a few friends of mine first. Your sister live in Verselium?" She sipped. 

"Yeah… That's what the letters said anyway. That she lives in Sol." 

"Sol? The polar opposite of Draco." 

The nurse nodded staring down at the island as the ship was slowly beginning to move. 

"You know, that's interesting. Draco and Sol are on exactly opposite side of the planet. If you draw a straight line from Draco's Elder Tower to Sol's Lunar Tower, you'd be going through the perfect center of the planet. I heard it had something to do with Elements." 

"Really…? I always thought it was because of the time before Draconian War." Alice replied serenely. 

"Perhaps, but whatever. Before the Draconian War, humans hadn't learned of magic, inner energy, dragons, zoanthropes, and such—now those are everyday life. Sometimes I wonder was it better before or after the War? I heard that before the dragons rebel, humans were simply duking it out, making up weapons as fast as they can just to blow each other up for no apparent reasons except to satisfy our desires." Another sip. "Now that the dragons have wiped out most of the technology that we worked so hard to create to incorporate into our weapons, I don't know whether they helped us or not." 

_Great, she's a talker. Thanks God that I slept on the submarine._ Alice only watched as the island became smaller and smaller before they were surrounded by water once more. 

"When you think about it, if the dragons haven't blow up our weapons, we might as well as have killed all of ourselves just because some jerks abuse the power." 

"Isn't it the same thing now with Tech?" Alice commented, wondering how much longer Lucia was going to speak. 

"Well, you could say so, although we have…" 

The nurse couldn't remember anymore of Lucia's ranting not that she cared. While the strange girl ranted on, Alice slumped against the railing, tiresomely staring down at the foaming wake of the liner below her. The red-haired girl didn't shut up until an hour later when she went in for a refill of her extra-large beverage. 

_Better get out of here before she comes back._

Alice went inside the ship, via a different door from Lucia. She sat down on a nearby seat, her red irises reflecting the balmy sun hovering just above the horizon. In the back of her head, a question emerged from the past, when she received the letter for the very first time. 

_…Are you really my sister, what can I do when we meet, is it even a possibility that we'll meet?_

* * * * * 

Alice had a rude awakening. A loud blaring alarm jolted her out of her sleep. Sleepily rubbing fatigue from her eyes, she looked at her watch and found out that she had been asleep for only two hours. People were filing in orderly, but their expressions showed signs of fear. The alarm shrilled, but it was not warning of the boat sinking or a fire; the alarm lights were of emerald green, unlike the red alarm of a leak or a fire. Unknowing the meaning of the green alarm light spinning overhead, she asked a woman old enough to fall out of her skin. The wrinkled crony only replied dryly: 

"The water bandits are coming…" 

"Pirates?" 

"Pirate, water bandits, whatever…" The old woman muttered dryly as if nothing was going to happen, but others were anxious. 

"Look!" Someone pointed to the bow of the ship. 

Everyone else looked outside taking a collective breath as officers locked the doors to outside decks. The nurse looked at the window showing everything in front of her, and watched in silence as the event unfurled. 

* * * * * 

The bow deck of the ship was empty save for one person—a young woman with red hair. Lucia. Alice could see only see her back, but she had a nostalgic feeling that she was grinning. Lucia was standing on the very front of the ship, balancing herself easily on the slender railing. Five—no, seven other ships were approaching the liner from front, but when Lucia looked around her, there an oddly innocent grin on her face. 

Apparently there were more than just the ships coming in from other direction. The pirate ships, as Alice noted, were shaped crudely with a triangular nose and a very boxy body, almost as if someone just sliced a milk carton into halves vertically. The builders must have put one half down on the ground vertically, gave it a multitude of floors, glued on the bridge and hemispheres with cannon barrels jutting out. Then throw in the entire clusters of equipment clearly visible even over the distance. 

Of course, the milk carton was made out of sheet metal and it must been one hundred metres long at least. People dressed in rusty armor and equipped with matching polearms lined up along the pirate ships, ready to complete their duties as soon as they have to. The Serpentine Coastal Guards would arrive, but whether the ship survive the seemingly inevitable looting was another story. Would they find the ship safe and sound? Or would they found it full of dead bodies? Would the liner even float in the end? 

"Why is that girl standing out there by herself!? The pirates are going to get her!" Someone yelled. 

The red-haired woman looked back at the worried faces of the passengers with a smile saying "I-will-be-fine-this-is-easy". Then she looked back at the oncoming pirate ships. She held her right hand to her side, curling the fingers around an invisible pole. Silently, a black mist slowly emerged and enveloped her before concentrating in her hand, condensing and stretching into a solid form. First, it was just a pole, lengthening until it was literally twice her height. The next thing was an enormous curved blade slowly materialized, attached to the top of the pole. There was a rune on the massive black blade of the newly formed weapon. Slowly, she seemed to hug the oversized weapon with an arm, her other arm dangling. 

"She's… She's… the Vampire Dragonslayer! No way man! Look at that rune on her big… big… scythe!" Another person whispered in disbelief, but Alice knew what it meant. 

_A Dragonslayer? Beside me all the time and I didn't even realize it!_

Lucia shifted the scythe larger than her petite body from her right to left, and back to her right. She only stood there fearlessly as the pirate ships approached closer, close enough for Alice to see the men's hideous face and their crooked grins. Close enough to witness the bloodshed, but not so close that the spurs were touching the liner yet. Lucia let out a laugh and grasped the scythe with both hands, wielding the titanic weapon as if it weighs nothing. For the first time ever, Alice witness the power of a Dragonslayer at its minimum. 

The Dragonslayer held her scythe over her head, as if to bring it down for a vertical slice. Then without a warning she leaped inhumanly high into air, toward one of the pirate ships. As soon as her body flew downward, she let out a laugh and swung her massive scythe in a magnificent arc. With audible crackling, almost thunderous, a massive energy bolt darker than the depth of night ripped through the air from the Lucia's weapon and crashed tremendously into the deck of the first pirate ship. There was a mightily roaring, black explosion and an angry shower of debris as the ship was literally ripped into half—before the first ship even began to sink, the Dragonslayer landed on its mangled deck and leaped into another ship. 

"OH YEAH!!!! THIS SHOULD TEACH YOU BOYS TO NOT MESS AROUND!!!!" 

This time, two ships exploded in a fury of black lightning bolts dancing fiercely in air, almost as if they seemed to be entities of their own mind. The series of explosions came so close that even the windows shattered with a dominant blast of air, forcing all the witnesses to instinctively duck and cover their heads. Debris of scrap metals and splinters of wood stormed inside as well. Alice could only hide behind a chair with her hands over her head. She still could hear explosions, and there was a loud roar and screeching of two ships colliding against each other. 

"Ever heard of the Draconian War?" Lucia's enthusiastic cry made the nurse's blood curdle. "Pity! You guys need better a education system!" 

Screams of fear filled her ears, but those screams did not come from her fellow travelers. While the wind continued to howl inside the liner, Alice was suddenly threw off where she was crouching and hit a wall, and there was a fulminating popping sound, then even more metal screeching against each other. Orange-red sparks flew into the room from outside. 

"Such a shame that that you'll never have to learn anything anymore!" 

More explosions rocked the liner forcefully as the passengers scrambled in chaos to keep their balance onboard the violently shaking ship. There was a shrill of air when Alice's eyes began to witness foreign images. First, she saw an image of a ship tore into halves suspended on the water's crashing surface, with debris froze in air as well as sailors being threw off. A man's horrified face, holding up two gloved hands with a background of a wooden floor. A very close up of a person's neck, almost as if it was through the eyes through a vampire sucking blood out of the jugular artery. 

_What are they? Are they from—her eyes!?_

They were. And the photographic mental images dispelled like a cloud. 

"This— is— it!" Lucia laughed out loud, and there was one final explosion that seemed to be far grander than all previous explosions, giving the liner a push so tremendous that for a moment Alice thought it was going to capsize. The roar was almost unbearably thunderous, and an unbroken glass rolling on the ground shattered not too distant from Alice. The shards cut through nearby passengers' faces, and that was all the damages. 

It ended as quickly as it started. The shaking of the ship slowly gentled into a steady rocking, but there were no more explosions. The nurse slowly stood up with her legs numb. When she looked outside the destroyed window, the bow deck was scattered with burning debris. Outside, there was no more pirate ships in sight, just floating flaming chunks of various materials. Other passengers were still pulling themselves together when she helped some of them getting up. The outside was once more serene and uniform, but the inside of the liner was… 

Sirens began to fill in the air. 

"Thanks God! We're saved! The Serpentine Coastal Guards have finally arrived!" A man said delightfully. 

When Alice looked out the bow windows again, Lucia was standing there without her scythe of shadow and looked as if nothing had happened, just wiping her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket. She grinned at the passengers of the ferry, baring her sharp canines that identified her as a vampire, although she wasn't affected by the sunlight. Perhaps that was because she was a Healer Vampire instead of an Undead Vampire; few with medical expertise like Alice knew the difference between different types of the bloodsucking race. 

"I hope I wasn't too slow. Man, I'm a bit rusty. Sorry for the mess!" 

Slowly, Alice helped a senior who amazingly didn't bust a hip outside. How long was it? Three minutes? Four minutes? It all happened just under one minute and she saw no signs of pirates ships. Save for floating debris, there was no survivors from the Pirate. While everyone else thanked the blushing Dragonslayer, Alice couldn't forget that the young-looking woman just slaughtered people, and left no survivors. 

_What if there were hostages aboard those ships?___

_There wasn't any hostages._

A voice said. The rabbit zoanthrope looked around, but nobody was talking to her. Lucia was too busily brushing off compliments. Alice nodded lightly, and focused on her task of helping a senior passenger of the ferry. While she placed her left hand slowly on the old woman's shoulder, she noticed something. A black glyph consisted of indescribable runes inside three concentric circles stood out on the back of her left hand. She rubbed the fine mark with her thumb, but the black ink didn't smear off. It was almost like a tattoo and seemed familiar, but her tongue couldn't find the word for it. 

"Miss?" A coast guard asked politely. "Are you alright?" 

I've got a bruised elbow, a bruised abdomen, a few cuts on my face that'll heal in a few days. I've got telepathic powers that kept turning to that strange Dragonslayer for no reasons. I've got a long-lost sister to meet, while I'm taking this trip by myself. No, I'm not alright. I'd rather to just head home, thank you very much, sir. Have a pleasant day. 

"Yeah." She answered with a nod and a smile, her eyes still trembling with lingering fear. "I think so. But first! I ought to take care of this old lady!" 

* * * * * 

"What do you mean my luggage's lost?" 

"Miss, I apologize for the inconvenience. Er, but one of the pirate ships' spurs had apparently penetrated one of the upper baggage compartments. So it is likely that your other luggage is drifting somewhere around… the ocean." 

"Great, thanks for telling me." 

_What now? At least I still have a backpack of clothing and essentials, and to think I was going out for a three-month vacation… Sister… I hope you're waiting for me…_

Sighing and taking her surviving backpack, she jogged for the border dividing Serpentine from Verselium. Lucia wasn't lining up by the border when she arrived in the line-up; the Dragonslayer was probably still chatting with the coast guard. Probably. 

-----   
**Author's Note: **Well, not only I just introduced one of the major characters, I also just showed off a little bit of another Dragonslayer's power. >_> Are the Dragonslayers important? Yes. You'll see... Bah, I admit it this chappy's a bit short and perhaps have a bit of logical lapse, but I couldn't think of a better idea. -.-00 Anyhow, working on next introduction: "Virtuous Assassin"! WHEE- 


	6. Virtuous Assassin

**Okay! It's Long's turn! A little foreshadowing of some sweet battles that you'll witness later on in the story. >_^******

**Chapter 5: Virtuous Assassin**

The endless desert of the Terra screamed, swirled, and scorched tirelessly. The people of Terra lived not on the barren sand dunes incapable of sustaining even very basic of all lifeforms, but dwelled beneath them. The City of Terra shined on in the largest underground hollow ever. The entire weight of smooth, glimmering ceiling stood on the shoulders of the hectometer-wide pillars. Ever since the ground above the kingdom was razed into barren wasteland, the people had been living in the underground cavern almost as large as the land above, with diamond on the ceiling to maximize the effect of the magical sun staged artificially here. Concrete buildings covered the entire floor of the two-mile tall cave, surrounding several massive lakes and the streams running into the priceless source of pure water. Oven-baked brick roads and bricks of gemstones divided the poor from the rich. The housing of the governing body loomed over the rest of the city in the form of an artistic castle with multiple gold-plated towers and ruby-plated spires. 

Lavish was the word for the riches of this underground society, as well as the corrupt underground system of assassins. Under the underground city, inside a large rectangular room decorated in the manner of a throne, with armored guards lining up both side of a maroon carpet leading to a chair on an elevated platform. Lining up behind the lines of guards were pillars supporting the decametre-high ceiling and served as the holders of burning torches. Inside the chair, a man with his fingers decorated by shining diamond lashed his tongue out in the dimness. 

"Long Jin! You—you actually let him escape with his ass safe and sound!" The fat man dressed in extravagant fashion bellowed to the assassin kneeling before him. "Why in the world you let him go! In your last mission—just before your grand retirement! Your retirement!" 

Long Jin remained silent diligently, his face emotionless. Nearing his forty, the man still looked a bit younger than he was. With a strong, yet serene face wearing small glasses of two circle lenses, he looked more like a teacher than anything else does. He had donned on an electric blue Chinese garment with golden phoenixes and dragons sewn onto it for his final mission debriefing. The long sleeves hid his strong arms that had been used to extinguished lives. His long, waist-length hair had been tied back in a slender ponytail, like a jet-black python dangling from the back of his neck. He possesses a pair of dark brown eyes showing the intelligent and diligent mind within him. 

"Why did you let him go when you almost had him!? I'm asking you!" 

Long looked up into the man's burning eyes and replied nonchalantly, "Indeed I once had my assassination target well within fatal striking range of my fists, but I made the decision to release him for I recently realized the reason of my retirement." 

"Release—recently—realize—reason—_your_ damn retirement! What are you trying to do, showing off your little poetic skill while you just let one of my rivals go! And to think I hired you because you had a success rate of 99%!" 

"That was years ago, I am tired of killing lives now. I told you, I have not accepted an assassination in years." 

"Schmuck! You should know the consequence of failing such an important mission!" 

"I do not know the consequence to be handed out by you. If you are done venting your incessant anger toward me, I believe my purpose here is finished." Long slowly stood up, straightened his clothing, and turned to exit holding his arms behind him. 

"My punishment to you will be death! Guards! Hold him!" 

Long slowly looked back over his shoulder at his enraged employer, with four strong hands on his shoulders and four curved swords pressed against his vulnerable neck. Retaining his nonchalance in the face of his death, he merely said, "Then be my guest." 

The words did not came out with fear or taunting. They were just words uttered orally. Unknowing to the obese man and his servants, Long was manifesting his inner energy, called _chakra_, into his fists in preparation of his self-defense. 

"Alright—." There was a knock on the large marble double door opposing the arrogant throne chair. "Here comes my clean-up!" 

The man waved a hand, and Long was taken aside as two guards kept their weapons close to drawing blood on the retiring assassin's neck. The man followed the two guards and stood aside the maroon carpet willingly, secretly kept his energy active inside his palms in case of a turn of event. Two guards slowly pulled open the double door and two other assassins walked in, one ahead of the other. Long studied the two newcomers carefully, and recognized them. However, the obese man didn't seem to know the true identities of the two assassins he just hired. 

The leader had a wile grin on his face. He has black sharp hair covering his ears, well combed away from his forehead. His body was quite lean and slender compared to Long. He wore a sleeveless shirt made out of bluish scales, probably of dragons. Two tubes of dragon scales covered his forearms snugly, and his pants matched the rest of his garments. Despite the law stating that it was totally illegal to wear clothing of authentic dragon scales ever since the Dragons were recognized to be equal to Humans, the man didn't seem to care. His biceps bulged out slightly, but nowhere near the degree of an extremely well built man. Strapped to his back was a weapon that Long only heard of—an oversized sword made entirely out of pure, shining diamond. The oversized sword looked to be over eight feet long from the butt of the diamond two-foot hilt to the tip of the blade. The blade wasn't really a whole blade, rather, it was made out of six diamond shaped 'V' stacked together, with the apex of the leading 'V' acting as the tip of the blade. The sides of the 'V' jutted out proudly, creating two serrated edges with six large teeth each. The sword must have weighed quite heavily, but the man walked lightly and effortlessly as if it weighed nothing. His eyes were diamond colored, almost silver and glassy, but the two windows of soul were not very reflective, almost dull with a pair of white pupils. The silvery eyes almost gave the watchers the illusion of his eyes glowing even in the dim room. 

The leader's accomplice, however, was different. The accomplice was a knight dressed in suit of smooth, blood-colored armor with a sinister crimson cloak in his wake. The knight also wore a crown of the same hue as his armor, and he looked far more formidable compared to the leading assassin. He didn't appear to be carrying anything of weaponry. The visor hid his face completely with an inverted arch slit for vision, although no one could see his eyes. However, Long already knew the eye color of the blood knight was no different from the milky eyes of a dead fish. Compared to his rugged and carefree comrade, he was walked in with more formality and caution. The putrid of decaying blood filled the air, and even several guards squirmed in the stench. Neither of them seemed to mind the stench. Long's nose burned slightly in the familiar stench, but didn't show signs of discomfort. 

_The nameless and Sanguinis… Better not mess with them…_

Both of them stomped casually toward their smiling employer and stopped without the slightest intention of kneeling before the kingpin. The leader casually tossed a bloody decapitated head to the guard standing just next to fat man. The guard caught the hand and showed it to his boss, who clapped in delight. 

"Alright, we've got your guy slaughtered like a pig, and I've got his head here. Where's my one million reward?" The silver-eyed man only grinned arrogantly with a demanding hand gesture, his other hand stuffed in a pant pocket. 

"Alright, alright, I'll pay you. You, show them the vault!" A guard raised his hand and gestured them to a guarded door beside the throne. 

The two assassins walked toward the door, then the leader stopped in front of it. "Hey, nice diamond rings and necklace you've got here." 

"Go and take whatever you want inside the damn room." The overweight man only grumbled. 

The two assassins entered the door and closed it behind them. That was when quickly the two guards beside the door locked the door and slid a metal bar through two hooks on the metal door. 

The fat man chuckled, "those fools fell for it…" He turned to Long, who had been standing silently. "Guess what? I never intended to pay any of you assassins. I've got an army of trained killers behind the door. It's a lot better than paying those cheap rip-offs of you stupid assassins." 

"…So you had never intended to pay me." Long parroted calmly. 

"Yes, I'm just telling you that because you're going to die anyway, just like those two fellows who just walked into the door. Why can't you be like them and accomplish your mission so that I don't have to bother lecturing you? Bah, I like listening to my own voice…" 

However, the retiring assassin only chuckled. 

"What are you laughing at?" 

"…Do you realize the identities of the two man who just walked into your devious trap?" 

"Why are you asking me? I don't really care anyway. Whether they get their jobs done or not, they're gonna die anyway." A shrug. 

"Frankly, I believed you made a fatal error," Long pushed his glasses up his nose with a smile on his face, "because they were—." 

"—the Cursed Dragon Assassins!" The silver-eyed man's booming voice erupted rudely from behind the metal door. 

* * * * * 

There was a loud crashing sound as the metallic door was sent flying powerfully, and crashed into the opposing wall. Terrified, the boss jumped up from his seat and almost tumbled down the steps of his own throne. A dozen guards, including those holding Long, jumped to surround the fat man while the rest rushed to form a protective line before their boss. A dead guard's body was tossed through the door with ease, his head missing from its original holding place. Laughing crazily, the man wearing dragon scales stepped into view with his accomplice beside him. Moving his bloodied diamond sword in a hand, he easily placed it against his shoulder. 

"Very funny! You just made your very final mistake, my fat friend!" He laughed devilishly, cracking his neck menacingly. 

"Who the hell are you? Who the hell are Cursed Dragon Assassins!?" The boss shouted threateningly. "Get out of here or your sorry asses will be dead! I have summoned reinforcements! Soon, dozens of my elite guards will be all over your dead bodies! Never mess with Reno!" 

The two assassins shot each other a very brief look, and the diamond-sword wielding man laughed out loud again. "…You haven't heard of us? Wow, you must have master your study of the Draconian War! I applaud you! Unfortunately, I don't have any damn certification for your awesome intelligence. So I'll just say this: 

"We are the most proficient killers of Dragons beside the Dragonslayers, the faction known as the Dragon Assassins." 

"Dragon Assassins, what kind of shit are they!?" 

"…Watch your mouth…" The knight said for the first time with a hoarse voice. "…It is not surprising that you have forgotten us. Ever since we were disallowed to live our original purpose: To slaughter dragons, we were forced to adapt a new meaning. The size now isn't what it used to be back in the old days, but we are still a formidable army nonetheless. You may have hired some Dragon Assassins before, but this is the first time you've hired two Cursed Dragon Assassins… 

"I don't give a fucking rat's ass who the hell you two bugs are!? All I know is that both of you will be ripped apart and fed to my hounds within minutes from now! I've warned you!" The man's face was bloating and flushing, seemingly ready to explode. 

"Whoa, calm down. How can you kill two people who's like, half-dead already because of Dragon's Curse?" 

"What the fuck is that? Guards! Get them!" 

The line of twenty-four guards charged with weapon raised, while the bodyguards remained in their places. The diamond Dragon Assassin muttered, "Hey Sanguinis, Each of us take half?" 

The knight named Sanguinis replied with a raise of his maroon gauntlets. Soundlessly, crimson liquid flowed freely from the palms of the gauntlets, but an invisible forced it upward before it condensed and hardened in the form of a slender serrated sword in each hand. The other man was already greeting his half with an eager war cry, and swung his diamond sword in a wide, powerful arc with a backhand slash. Sounds of flesh ripping reached Long's ears, and he looked away. Meanwhile, the oversized sword literally ripped through the bodies of twelve guards as if they were wet paper towels, initiating steaming showers of scarlet blood as the dismembered torsos fell apart. Some of them were still convulsing, stubbornly refusing to let go the last of life they had. Others just fell soundlessly with their entrails flying as destroyed coils of intestines unraveled in air. There was also several pieces of viscera stuck to the sword's serrated blade, but the man laughed in joy. 

Sanguinis, on the other hand, had finished dissecting the necks of his half cleanly, and the crimson swords slowly melt into blood, disappearing into his gauntlets. Both bloodstained men looked at Reno, who only stared in wide-eyed horror and pushed all of his bodyguards to front on him. 

"You sure you haven't heard of us? Very well, I might introduce ourselves to you," the black-haired Dragon Assassin continued to grin, licking his lips hungrily. "My name's… Well, I don't even have a name. I'm **_the_** nameless Dragon Assassin, the nameless Diamond Warrior." 

"And I'm Sanguinis, the Blood Knight, or the Blood Manipulator if you want to get technical." 

"Guess what? We both have seen and survived the Draconian War—believe it or not. We are still very much alive with the Curses within us, with the Cursed Dragons' blood flowing within our blood. Although my blood's already turned into diamond dust." The nameless man spun his weapon in one hand easily, and pointed it in Reno's direction. "Let me explain our powers a bit. First, I would like to talk with you face-to-face, without those pests in our way…" 

Silently, the massive diamond sword disassembled into six diamond 'V's and were hurled in full speed at the bodyguards. Within a second, they returned to the empty hilt and assembled themselves back into the original form of the oversized sword. Reno suddenly found himself standing in a pool of blood, steaming internal organs, and tore body parts of his former bodyguards. Long could hear water running and smell the urine from a safe distance with his nose of a keen tiger zoanthrope. To be specific, Reno's urine. 

"Wet your pants?" The nameless man chuckled. 

Reno tried to run, moving his overweight legs as fast as he could, but his feet were no longer touching the ground. 

"Did I mention that I, as the Diamond Warrior, possesses telekinetic control over anything that's made of diamond?" 

Choking, Reno realized that an invisible force was pulling on his diamond necklace, and it was pulling his entire body weight up as well. When he tried to move his stubby fingers, the diamond rings restrained their already limited agility. The nameless man lowered his sword and walked to the helpless man hovering over the bloody ground with his legs kicking frantically for his life. Straining his breath, he wheezed. 

"…Long… Please… help me…" 

When the eyes of the two Dragon Assassins were upon Long, he didn't move but only replied calmly, "I apologize, but I do not feel there is a justifiable reason for me to help you. Instead, I will leave your life in the hands of the gentlemen. Beside, I am retired and I will no longer utilize my martial arts for any purpose other than saving innocent lives. You are far by not of an innocent soul." 

"Good boy!" The diamond-eyed man laughed, and turned to Reno. "I guess there's a reason to treat your assassins nice, eh? Hey, you Chinese man here, I'm going to let you watch us having fun and live to tell about it. And as for you, I was in a good mood and I was thinking of letting you live, but thank you for making me change my mind." 

Distant footsteps could be heard approaching for the double door. 

"…I will like to give you one rare spectacle of what a Dragon's Curse can do." Sanguinis, without waiting for his comrade's words, walked to the middle of the room, facing the double door with his palms outstretched toward the doors. It was the Blood Knight's turn to lecture. 

"…I and my best nameless friend here are Cursed because we drank a Cursed Dragon's blood. We have managed to slay the dragons who cursed us to die before our death. It resulted in us stopping the Curse, but we would never recover from our Curse; it is totally irreversible. However, it did bestow us with powers no one can learn. 

"No one." 

"I, the nameless Dragon Assassin, am supposed to become just a diamond statue." 

"And I, Sanguinis, am _bleeding_ every single second of my suffering. I have unsurpassed blood production rate, plus I am very much capable of manipulating my blood into any shape I desire, anything, providing there are enough amount of blood. I can also change my blood's hardness at will, to the point where it becomes as hard as steel, yet as heat resistant as tungsten. My armor is my blood, so is my weapon… And the more pain I suffer, the more control over my blood I get…" 

Tendril of condensed blood began to ensnare Sanguinis' arms together as the gauntlets dissolved into masses of blood tentacles, extending and twisting into a new form. More and more blood tentacles intertwined with each other, weaving a complex fabric of the organic liquid and condensing. While the blood was still hardening, Long could recognize the basic shape of a massive cannon barrel with a very organic texture. Sanguinis even added touching finishes to it as blood vessels pulsated throughout the cannon barrel. The finished product was over five metres long and nearly one foot wide. 

Inside the cannon barrel, a shell of hardened blood with a core of liquid blood. Lodged itself just next to a chamber filled with liquid blood as well. 

Aiming the organic cannon directly at the double door, Sanguinis finished his lecture. 

"…But my favorite gift is that I can make my blood flammable and explosive if I want. Even though my mind is constantly in pain and prevents me from creating even a basic fireball, I still can concentrate enough to generates sparks…" 

"Hey Long, cover your ears." The nameless Dragon Assassin covered his own ears, but didn't release Reno from his diamond-induced telekinetic power. The other person obeyed and slowly put Reno between him and the double door as Sanguinis stood nonchalantly, waiting for his helpless victims to open the door. 

The double door was threw open. 

"…And _this_ is what happens…" 

A spark was born. 

* * * * * 

"Pffft, what a waste of such a good army of trained soldiers. Then again, I guess crime doesn't pay, especially when they found the wrong people to work with." The nameless man snorted, stuffing the former diamond possession of the Reno-turned headless carcass. 

During all the time, Long stood silently and was heading for the destroyed door where a sizable crater continued to billow with grey smoke. The smell of burning flesh made him cover his nose with a handkerchief while the two powerful Assassins discussed on other matter. Long had actually admired the powers of the two Cursed Dragon Assassins, and never ever thought he would actually have a chance to witness their powers in person. He had met with them before, but had never talked with them or exchanged attacks. He would rather to just leave silently than getting their unnecessary attention. Beside, he got a vacation to take before starting his secondary life… 

"Hey, you." It was the nameless man. "What's your name, man?" 

Long turned to the Cursed Dragon Assassin and hesitated briefly. Noting that the nameless Dragon Assassin isn't the one to be dishonorable, he told them his name politely with a light bow. 

"Long Jin? Heh, I've heard of ya before. You're the one who held onto a record assassination success rate of 99% for ten straight years! That is, the record which I'm not eligible to break since I'm frigging _indestructible_." 

_At least he isn't going to challenge me. I would have no hope of going against him._

"Affirmative, that would be me. I am honored to be recognized by such a formidable person like you. There is no possibility that I can hope to near your perfect one hundred percentage of success rate for ten thousand straight years." 

"Hrmph, guess what? Don't say like that. I don't like it when people are being too nice and respectful and such." 

"My apology." 

"I'll just let you go, seeing that you're retiring today. Enjoy your life, and you better get out quickly—I'm going to destroy the worthless, unsanitary brothel above us. Better to help those girls out." 

"Very well, I shall depart immediately. Farewell, the nameless Dragon Assassin and Sanguinis." Long bowed, and turned around to leave. 

"…Wait!" Sanguinis shouted with a tone of urgency in his voice. "…The room's falling apart." 

Long stopped in his track and the room began to tremble, first lightly but slowly intensifying. He looked up to find cracks spreading throughout the dark ceiling, creating a complicated root system slowly conquering the ceiling. Small chunks of stones began to fall, and the sign of trouble alone was enough to cause Long to channel his chakra within his hands. He stood with his palms together, taking deep breaths steadily. 

_Breath in, out, in, and out…_

The two Dragon Assassins, however, only stood and looked up at the ceiling that was about to collapse. 

"Hey, Sang, you put too much explosives in your shell… again." The nameless man shrugged a shoulder, massaging his neck with a hand. 

"…The thirty-seventh time, I believe." The duo looked up with such nonchalance that it seemed they were only facing a drizzle instead of crushing chunks of rocks. 

There was a loud crashing sound as the ceiling finally gave in, sending tons of enormous chunks of rocks down upon the heads of the survivors. The pillars beside them cracked and buckled outward loudly. A chunk of rock larger than a bus aimed for Long. Completing his preparation, the retired assassin raised his right fist straight into air and brought his right knee to his waist. When the boulder was almost close enough, he slammed both said limbs downward hard, the fist into a waiting palm and the foot into ground with a loud, invisible spherical expulsion of airy chakra. The smaller rocks around him were instantly ejected away and the large chunk of rock was pushed upward into the air momentarily, showing signs of cracking. The oversized boulder descended again, but this time Long's right palm was glowing in a greenish hue. Almost effortlessly, he thrust his palm upward and introduced it to the inanimate meteor. Long's palm won, splitting the boulder into halves before it exploded into tiny fragments. Slowly, he outstretched his palms before him and lowered them gracefully, panting lightly for air. The room had stopped shaking, and with the remaining torches lighting the gloominess, he turned to the Dragon Assassins. 

"…I'll let you do it. You have it on your fingertip anyway…" Sanguinis insisted to his nameless partner. 

"Alright, I'll let Dragonkiller do it." 

The nameless man scoffed, and looked up at the boulder twice the size of the one that Long recently destroyed with effort. The boulder was resting on only one hand of the nameless assassin's free hand, supported only by his fingers. The man didn't show signs of strains on his left arm as he reared his oversized diamond sword named Dragonkiller. Long sensed that the man wasn't even using his inner energy when the nameless man brought the sword up in mighty slash. Theoretically, a diamond sword of the proportion of Dragonkiller would have shatter upon contact with the boulder due to the lack of impact resistance of diamond. However, the nameless' diamond sword divided though the boulder with utmost ease, and he casually tossed the divided chunks utilizing only his pinky and his thumb. 

"Shoo, that was way too easy." The nameless man let out a sigh. It was neither a sigh of relief nor fatigue. It was merely a breath. 

Long looked behind him, but he wasn't disheartened that a wall of boulders had block his exit. Not with the two Dragon Assassins, at least. 

"Well, here went our way out… Long?" The silver-eyed man gestured to the tiger zoanthrope. 

"Yes?" He began to walk toward the two Dragon Assassins. 

"Stand beside San." Long obeyed the Diamond Warrior's word. 

While he stood next to the Blood Knight, he felt a slight discomfort standing next to the intimidating knight. However, he had a clear idea of what the nameless man planned to do. When the nameless man nodded to Long and Sanguinis, he raised his diamond sword overhead and began to channel it with a clear hue of energy. Then, a protective bubble of blood enveloped around the tiger zoanthrope and the bloodily cursed man and hardened. 

"He's of the caliber most people assume him to be?" 

"…No. He's stronger than the rumors say." 

There was a fulminating explosion. 

* * * * * 

"I thank you for helping me from being trapped!" Long kneeled before the two Dragon Assassin, on the bottom of the gigantic crater that was once of a filthy brothel where Reno had personally defiled many innocent lives, both male and female alike. 

"Heh, drop the damn formality. I don't give a shit. I ought to stay here and see if there's any more money left around here. I can't destroy half of the street without getting paid. 

The tiger zoanthrope respectfully nodded, and stood up slowly, turning around. As he walked away, he could hear the nameless man happily plucking diamond from the crater that engulfed one tenth of the massive red-light district of the underground city. He looked up at the magically illuminated ceiling of the metropolitan cave as he began his long trip toward the rim of the mile-wide crater. It was daytime for Terran, and that was the only time where its workers and owners abandoned the red-light district until the nightfall. Although Reno and his militia were the only confirmed casualties, he hoped none other lives were taken… 

_Forget about this and focus on my new life before me…_

* * * * * 

The next day, Long had his passport examined by the border guard, a half-dragon. A half-dragon was not to be confused with demi-dragon. While a demi-dragon is basically a dragon zoanthrope, a half-dragon is a fusion of both human and dragon that is not a zoanthrope. The guard has a dragon's head and scales, but he lacked the talons, wings, and tail. Surprisingly, the border guard was able to speak human tongue with perfect coherence, as if he was really a pure human in disguise. 

"Why are you going into Verselium?" The border guard asked Long politely, his golden reptilian eyes blinking lightly 

"I am going to Sol, Verselium for the purpose of studying to become a teacher and a martial instructor." 

"Okay, you're free to go. We don't get many people for this Levitation Tube. They say it's because it's close to the Scion border." The half-dragon guard let Long pass through. 

Slinging his traveling pack across his shoulder, he walked toward the gate. 

"Say, that crater's really strange, eh? No conventional weapon could have done that, but we haven't heard of anyone _THAT_ strong. Maybe the Dragonslayers, the only one who really stays here left last week." 

"I heard it was the work of the nameless Dragon Assassin…" 

The border guard chuckled, "We all know that he's just an myth, an legend. Beside, even a three years old knows that if he exists, it would be impossible for him to use such a ridiculous sword made out of diamond without it shattering. Dragon's Curses are things of history." 

Long didn't say anything, and moved into the loading area of the Levitation Tube. The loading area was empty save for an old guard, who gestured Long to step into the titanic room. The room, rather, the entire Levitation Tube was a titanic vertical tunnel linking the cavern to the aboveground world almost ten thousand feet above the Kingdom of Terra. The two-hectometres wide tunnel was mostly dark outside of the loading area, save for several long lines of golden lights and an array of rings of lighting leading all the way from the bottom to the top. Long looked up and he could see a faint dot of light on the top of the enormous tunnel. Before him, directly a part of the tunnel, was a pit of the same size and shape as the perfectly straight and circular tunnel. On the bottom of pit, was a large mirror of rubies eternally fused with magical powers. Although it looked to be a fall of two hundred metres, Long nonchalantly stepped forward with his foot placed directly over the ruby mirror below and placed both of his feet on nothing. 

However, he didn't fall. Instead, he was just standing on an invisible floor with both of his feet dangling slightly. The invisible magic let Long walk to the middle of the massive tunnel before beginning to levitate him upward, toward the sole destination of the tunnel. His body just floated up in air, although he was just waiting to arrive on the top of the tunnel. 

It would take approximately half an hour, and already he began to study the black mark on the back of his left hand. It was more of a black glyph tattooed onto the back of his left. He found the mark last night when he was serenely enjoying his first dinner as a retired assassin and a soon-to-be teacher. 

He was positive that it wasn't here when he was still walking up the slope of the crater last day. 

-----   
**Author's Note:** YAY!!! Another intro down! Now time to hunt down the last three! The serious stuff should get started in a few more chapters! Hehehe... Time to work on "Falling Sky"! 


	7. Falling Sky

**WHEE- I guess I finished this one earlier than I thought, eh? Oh yeah, there'll be quite a bit of airship actions later on.**

**Chapter 6: Falling Sky**

Crystalline pillars were all that supported the cities of Kingdom of Scion ten thousand feet into air. The cities, all independent to each other and linked only by airships flying in and out of them, stood fearlessly only on a slender pillar less than one hundredth of the cities' width. Magic and technology, both derived from Serpentine's underwater cities, helped to hoist the massive cities high above the clouds solidly. The cities were shaped like a nerve cell, when looked from above. Six long, slender unsupported runways as translucent as glasses stretched out from the glassy dome and made up for two third of the sky city' width. Just like the cities of Serpentine, the cities were right in the middle of, yet protected from the elements of beautiful nature. Airships buzzed around the massive cites like swarms of bees protecting their hives, their size ranging from ten metre long fighter ships to three kilometres long heavy battlecruisers. Yet, the massive flagships of Scion were easily dwarfed by the size of the cities, almost like a flea on a dog. 

Yet, the cities were as fragile as glass, gleaming in the nude sunlight. 

Inside the headquarters of the elite mercenary group Skystorm, a blonde-haired young woman with her hair styled into a backward spiked manner stood firmly in front of an older man, with apparently same hairstyle, only shorter. 

"Father, I'll accept the mission." Jane Gado nodded to her superior. 

"Alright, daughter, take this and read this over. I expect you to begin the mission as soon as tomorrow." Her father, in his fifties, handed her a yellow folder with a strong, burly hand of a military veteran. "I expect you to take your time. According to our client, I feel that it's better if you would just head for Sol in case of any trouble." 

"Yes, father." The female pilot took the file. "I believe that is all. I'll see you later." 

"It might be a bit early, but good luck on your mission. I told your mom to cook your favorite." Gado, known for being a powerful lion zoanthrope, blinked his single remaining eye. 

"My **_step_**-mom." Jane scolded, her light blue eyes glaring in her father's eye with dislike of the said woman. 

"Be nice to her, at least. I've always liked your fierce attitude; you're already a powerful mercenary." He smiled, setting his big, strong body back against his large leather chair. 

The young mercenary only turned her back. The lion zoanthrope watched on as the leopard zoanthrope's back walking out, feeling proud of raising his daughter… 

* * * * * 

"I believe I have told you that the Gatekeepers are currently underway on gathering them together." 

"Yes, so? I've secured this bad boy Dauntless. It's not like I can lose with it. I'm very confident that wolfboy wouldn't be able to outmatch me in anything." 

"How many of them have you found so far?" 

"There's one in Firavana, but I'm not sure whether it was the boy or some other person. Then the wolfboy I just told you about. I just found the third one. The Wielder of Wind, I believe. An airship pilot, actually." 

"What do you plan to do now?" 

"Obviously, I'm taking my PsiThunderbird out for a ride tomorrow. It'll take me only a few second to fly from Tech to Scion with dimensional technology that I just put on Pluto." 

"Pluto?" 

"Let's just say it's my top-secret world-destroying weapon. And I'll put it in a good use if they're as powerful as you say." 

* * * * * 

"Alright, darling! Be safe and see you!" Jenny Gado said in a sing-song voice, with a cigarette in two fingers. 

Jane had always despised the woman since the seductress married her father a decade ago and still made occasional insults involving the super model's revealing dresses and her unbelievably awful cooking. Jenny might as well as work in a strip joint; Jane had thought about that many times. One benefit of being a Skystorm mercenary was missions that can takes up to months to accomplish, and Jane had enjoyed the time away from her so-called stepmother. Living to his father's standard as an elite Scion mercenary, the leopard zoanthrope had plenty of experience, especially those involving sabotage, assassination, and scouting. However, it was out-of-country missions that she liked the most. 

"Later. See you in a few weeks" The feline zoanthrope didn't say anything else and just walked out of her home slamming the door behind her. 

Wearing a blue leather outfit with finger-less gloves, Jane looked more like a Tech biker than a Scion airship pilot. Despite being only at deceiving age of twenty-two, she already had at least eight years of experiences working with her father. She took the lift directly down to the hangar where her personal fighter ship was maintained and fine-tuned for the mission. While the lift descended, she casually recollected her mission objectives. 

_First, head for Sol and meet with the anonymous client. Funny, that strange client warned about enemy airships. It wouldn't be even necessary, but whatever. At least I'm getting paid for doing this thing while I get to stay away from that slut._

The lift stopped five minutes of solitude descent later, and the door slid open. Jane stepped into the hangar and walked down the catwalk along the wall of the massive room. Personal fighter ships of various types and models covered the walls of the hangar, like bees resting in a cell of their hive without walls dividing them. Technicians were still busily working on most of the fighter ships, repainting, replacing parts, upgrading, or fine-tuning them. She looked at several eye-grabbing fighter ships, analyzing their values and efficiency in a mission. 

_Hmmm, a Truth fighter ship, last year's model, equipped with concealed weapons and dual super-heated plasma/ionic engines. Not bad, but not agile enough. A Manitou fighter ship, two years old, exposed weapons, fortified hull armor with titanium-tungsten alloy for super-heat resistant. I don't have that many missions to Firavana. I guess I'll have to stick with my three-years old WASP at least until they finally get something nifty out or I save up enough dough for a custom-made._

Casually, she walked to beside her unattended fighter ship, a blue fighter ship that was shaped somewhat like a bee, with blue movable propulsion wings on its back and a white head with two bluish-green lines for optical sensors. It also as a pair of thin fixed wings for stability. Jane climbed onto her fighter ship's flat back, between the two wings, unlocked and opened a hatch. Removing the visor sitting on the pilot's chair, she dropped down into the cockpit and closed the hatch. Securing the hatch and turning on the power with a flick of level, she put on her helmet, tightened the harnesses to her body, and ran through her routine system check just like every time she took her nameless fighter ship out for a flight. 

_Engines… Check. Shield… Check. Fuel… Check. Armor… Check. Weapons… Check. Navigation system… Check. Control System… Check. Braking system… Check._

"This is Jane Gado of Lot Theta-7241, release me." 

"We're opening the hangar. You're ready to go soon." 

Slowly, the floor of the hangar divided, revealing the white cloud below the city. The robotic arm holding Jane's fighter ship extended forward, holding the bluish wasp-like aircraft over the opening floor. The airship's wings began to emit a light emerald green hue as the plasma engines activated silently. She flipped a few more levers in a final adjustment as the computer began to countdown. After a five-seconds countdown, the robotic arm released its hold on the back of the airship. Jane's hands grasped the dual control sticks of the fighter ship loosely, her eyes fixated on the viewscreen before her. The fighter ship dove, pulled by gravity as it fell clear of the floor. The engines kicked alive. She could feel the G-force on her body increase and was excited by it. The fighter ship continued to pummel toward the cloud, then Jane skillfully pulled the control stick back and suddenly her fighter ship was flying perfectly horizontally. Enjoying the force of gravity on her body, she could see the beautiful cloudless sky on her high-resolution viewscreen, with a horizon of pure blue and white clouds. For a moment, she circled around the titanic city, admiring the sky city's artistic and organic design. 

_Time to go. So long, Scion._

She broke orbit and the seven-metre fighter ship dashed for its destination immediately. 

I'll arrive at Sol within twelve hours at least. When I get there, I'll have to look for one particular old man. Apparently a dragon-related. Either a demi-dragon or a half-dragon. Or neither. What does that old hag has in store for me that require a payment of six hundreds ryo? Assassination? Sabotage? Renaissance? Whatever it is, at least I can try to find an excuse to get away from that bitch for as long as I want. 

* * * * * 

Only two hours into her flight, nearing the Scion border, a red dot made itself known on the radar projected on her visor. An unidentified fighter ship. At first, Jane didn't pay much attention to the sole red dot on the radar. The viewscreen only showed an empty sky, with no other airships in vision. However, a live video transmission caught her attention. The computer identified the sender as unknown. Instinctively, she reached up and opened a channel. 

A man's head appeared on the viewscreen, wearing a black near-full face helmet shaped with a partial curved beak and exposing only his lips and chin. The rest were just hidden beneath the otherwise featureless helment. Judging from the familiar dim background with a faint contour of a chair back, the mercenary assumed the unidentified man as another fighter ship pilot. 

"Identify yourself!" Jane demanded, finally noticing the red dot on the radar fast approaching her from eleven o'clock. 

The mysterious man smirked. "Codename's Omega Zero. You must be Jane Gado, one of the elite mercenary of Skystorm." 

"What if I am?" Jane scowled lightly. "If you're thinking of challenging me to a duel, I don't have time." 

"Oh, too bad. Because I don't need your permission to initiate a duel. It's my mission to take care of you." 

"Is it about that old hag who hired me?" The red dot was well within vision range, but Jane couldn't see anything but a thick blanket of cloud below her. 

"No. I'm going to down you for personal reasons. You have the powers that I desire, and if I don't get the powers, nobody gets it." 

What powers? What powers? I'm not even a telekinetic! 

"Shut up and leave me alone. I can assure you, I'm not in a very good mood right now." 

"Good. Meet my PsiThunderbird." The image of Omega Zero disappeared off the viewscreen, but the audio remained open. 

Suddenly the alarms in her fighter ship wailed. Dozens of small objects burst out from the clouds below, drawing long contrails of grey smoke in the blue sky while the objects arced toward her. Their bodies ripped through air with unmistakable shape and characteristics. 

_Missiles. Multi-warhead missiles, apparently._

Skillfully Jane pulled the nose of her ship up, causing it to shot upward sharply, and activated the EMP emitter on her fighter ship for countermeasures. She dropped a pair of chaff in her wake as well, and half of the smaller missiles turned their attention to the countermeasures. The rest were still chasing her upward. Calmly, she pulled back both of the control sticks, then quickly shoved one of them forward. The fighter ship responded agilely by doing a half-loop, and performed a controlled death spiral down toward the ground, evading the swarm of missiles expertly. Stabilizing herself once the last of the missiles missed her for sure, she could see her opponent's fighter ship. It was the PsiThunderbird he mentioned. PsiThunderbird was a silver sleek fighter ship, with a set of triangular wings capable of folding into the body of the airship for greater speed. A pair of streamlined tail fins stood proudly at the back. She quickly had her computer to scan the enemy airship through the database of registered fighter ship model. 

"Let's tango!" Omega Zero smiled slyly as the PsiThunderbird shot upward to meet the falling mercenary. 

Jane's targeting computer had already locked on, and both of the high-velocity gatling cannons were already unfurled. Having only two seconds before the two fighter ships collide, she squeezed the triggers. Red-hot bullets spewed out from the gatling cannons installed on both side of her fighter ship, raining down upon the PsiThunderbird. However, a force field deflected the bullets easily. Jane muttered a curse aloud, having wasted her ammunition. 

"You can't touch my Tri-Level Bubble shield with those puny bullets!" The other pilot let out a menacing laughter as the two fighter ships were about to collide. 

In the last second, both of them pulled away from each other, narrowly missing each other. Jane quickly turned around as fast as her fighter ship could, but the PsiThunderbird was already facing her in less than a second. The edges of the silver fighter ship slid open and six cannon barrels jutted out lightly. By the time Jane was able to face her opponent, greenish laser beams showered her. 

He's THAT agile? 

Reflexively taking evasive maneuvers, she ignored her computer's warning of the disappearance of half of her shield power. The two fighter ships quickly flew past each other again, but Jane began turning back before she flew over him. A missile came out of nowhere from behind the PsiThunderbird and crashed into her shield, but fortunately it was only a very small one, probably no less than several grams of explosives. However, she wasn't very much concerned about her computer's warning of the shutting down of the energy bubble shield of her fighter ship. 

"Why bother when I'm going for the kill?" Jane thought, muttering aloud to herself. "Time to bust out the bigger guns. The Wind cannons will take him down for sure… Can't screw up with two armor-piercing shells infused with Wind magic…" 

This time, a pair of 100mm caliber cannons charged with Wind energies snapped into place and the targeting computer was locked onto PsiThunderbird's back. While the dual plasma engines of the silver fighter ship were still vulnerable, the mercenary scoffed. 

"Nice to meet you." She squeezed the triggers. 

Within the charging time of less than one tenth of a second, the cannon barrels sucked in air, whining as the compressed air was being manipulated by the magic infused to the half-technological, half-magical weapon. The shells filled up, and rocketed forward upon the explosive strikes of the hammer and compressed air. As soon as the two greenish shield exited the wombs of the cannons, they charged toward still-vulnerable PsiThunderbird with supersonic mercilessness. The energy used to unleash those shells speed of over Mach 3 were barely born when the shells already collide with the PsiThunderbird's shield. The bullet-shaped shells shattered, exposing the explosive with the raging air. While the pilot of the struck bird wasn't even realizing what was going on, his ship was engulfed by a flash of greenish light and a blasting explosion of air. 

"Direct hit! Game over!" 

To make sure of her opponent's defeat, Jane had her missile launchers snapped into place before her fighter ship even finished recoiling from the force of the malicious cannons. Four missiles cruised through air easily, and added an orange fireball to the greenish fireball. The explosion raged on for a second, and there was no sign of her opponent. It began to diminish, and she could see debris falling with a wake of billowing smokes. 

It was over. 

"Too easy, man. Only seven seconds…" She reached out for a button that conceals her weapons. 

_Perhaps a bit too easy… Never mess with a Skystorm._

She was too full of confidence that she didn't notice the red dot on her radar remained, that she had not one joule of shield power left, and that the audio channel was still very much connected to the PsiThunderbird. 

"Correction: Eight seconds." Omega Zero's voice snickered. 

A whitish beam ripped through the explosion, and struck her shield. Before she could even realize what happened, her shield generator shut down and the searing white beam sliced through the right wing of her fighter ship. 

* * * * * 

What the—hell—just—happened? 

Jane fought fiercely, wiggling the control sticks furiously in hope of regaining control of her airship. However, her airship wasn't designed to fly on one wing, and it ended up with her airship tumbling down toward the ground, through the thick layer of cloud. She couldn't see anything as the airship flipped and twisted randomly on its final journey toward the ground. Everything was just a blur and blood was rushing to her brain. Another red dot replaced the one spinning crazily around her radar only that the newcomer was much larger—covering almost the whole radar; a far larger airship. When she tried to send a distress signal, Omega Zero's cold voice only laughed again. His image popped up in the viewscreen, mercifully taking over the dizzying sight of the spinning world. 

"No use, woman. As long as you're connected with my airship, you can't send anything without me disconnecting. Good job; you partially penetrated my shield and destroyed the left wing. However, it wouldn't matter anyway. I'm already back in my comfy chair aboard Pluto." He chuckled with the background noises of the working cruise of a bridge. "We are expecting a rough landing. Please buckle up and enjoy the flight. Thank you very much." 

"Damn you! Damn you!" 

She couldn't eject herself, not with her airship tumbling toward like a ragdoll. There was too much certainty of a serious injury if she shall try to escape. The blur in her view screen began to turn from just white to white with green streaks. She just dropped from the cloud literally, and the ground wasn't too far below. The ship refused to right itself as it somersaulted furiously, performing gymnastic movements that would put the best to shame. Left in its unsteady wake was a long trail of vented plasma. 

_Damn it! Damn it! I cannot die just like that. Dying in the mission for a reason may be honorable, but when I haven't even started it and I have absolutely no idea why I'm falling to my death?_

The altimeter told her that the ground was only three thousand feet away. 

_Why!? It was only a seven second battle and I've already lost!? Dammit, how come I'm not telekinetic just like some others!?_

Two thousand-five. She clasped her head with her hands, regretting her overconfidence had let her down once more. Only that this time might be the last time she would make the mistake. 

_If I should ever survive this fall… You are paying for this!_

One thousand. She continued to refuse to accept that she had been defeated so easily and shielded her face in shame with her hands. 

_…Just… Not yet._

Five hundred… 

_Not yet…_

One hundred… 

_I'll make you pay…_

Fifty feet. 

_I'm done for. Now my ship is going to crash, burst into a fireball and burn my body so badly that nobody would even recognize me, or even that this ship is a Scion ship. That son of a bitch must be laughing his godforsaken ass off for NO damn reason! At least I deserve to know why the hell I'm being shot down for!?_

She wanted to scream out of frustration, and she wanted the ship to stop falling. The ship must stop falling. 

It must. It must. 

The fiery death didn't greet her. The alarmed continued to blare, but she definitely could feel with her body that the airship was no longer executing drastic diving somersaults. She stopped feeling the violent vibration of the cockpit. 

_Am I dead?_

She couldn't see anything but darkness, then realized that her hands were still shielding her eyes. Slowly, she removed her instinctive barrier and found that she was still strapped to her chair in the cramped cockpit of her downed aircraft. She looked down at her body and found it to be still held in one piece by her dark blue attire. The altimeter stopped at merely thirty feet from the ground, while the gyroscope indicated that the fighter ship was somehow hovering with its nose pointing to the ground. The engines were definitely down, so were her shield and most of the weapons. Her eyes wandered in disbelief, and slowly were attracted to the viewscreen. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. She just froze. 

Staring into the optical sensors with an expression of surprise and shock was a man dressed in elegant, electrifying blue Chinese garment with golden and silvery designs sewn in. His earthly brown eyes locked with Jane's, through the lenses a pair of small glasses and the optical sensors of the fighter ship suspended in midair by an invisible hand. Yet, the lock of eyes was one-sided. She could see the man's long, black ponytail slowly swaying, so time wasn't frozen. 

This was the real time. 

_What… what… happened? Was this… telekinesis? Did… he just save me? Or… it just me..?_

Slowly, a thought came to her mind, of letting the ship fall from the less dangerous height. Now that the ship was only thirty feet from the ground, the pilot would easily survive the fall. The fighter ship was toast anyway. She could get another one once she's done with her mission. Just let the ship down, and she would plan the rest of— 

And the ship fell. 

-----   
**Author's Note: **Well, here's another intro shot down. Just work on the last two intros and the story will officially begins! HELL YEAH! Working on the second-to-last intro: "Imaginary Hunt" ~_^ Just try to guess the meaning! Just after that and the final (and perhaps the only other intro as long as Kenji's) intro... 


	8. Imaginary Hunt

**Okay, here's an original character of mine: Shannon the Falcon. The second-to-last intro is now written. *takes a deep breath* FINALLY!!!******

**Chapter 7: Imaginary Hunt**

The arrow found its mark on the target. 

The Kingdom of Pilgrion remained scarred by its warred past, and no blanket of unrequited nature could mask the scars. Situated far from the scars to lessen the recollection of the shameful Draconian War, people continued on with their daily lives in the land once occupied by Angelus. In a village that would have been considered as a city, next to a snowy mountain jutting out of the lush green horizon, Shanyu Tsunami made her twenty-third bull's eye of the day. 

The nineteen-year old falcon zoanthrope lowered her brown recurve bow to confirm her shot, and her right hand reached back to grasp another arrow. She was a slender young girl, with silky dark brown hair slightly longer than her shoulders. For what most normal guys would see as a cute and innocent-looking girl, she wore a rugged white shirt with a pair of beige cargo pants and spent most of her free time either at the target range or scaling scary rock faces. Effortlessly she nocked the arrow with the three-foot long bow and pulled back on the bowstring, her gloved left hand stabilizing the bow with the flesh between the thumb and index finger. Utilizing only one of her chestnut eyes, she aimed her twenty-fourth arrow of the quiver carefully and let go. Her gifted marksmanship remained. 

_Bull's eye._

"Very good! Twenty four bull's eye in a row!" 

Lowering her bow, she craned her slender neck to look over her shoulder, "Hi Matt. How long have you been here?" 

"Hi Shannon, I just came here." Her childhood friend smiled, running a hand through his hair in a way that the brown-haired falcon zoanthrope recognized as an attempt to look attractive. In Academy, he occasionally works the same shift with her. "Just dropping by and saying hi." 

"Just say what you have on your mind." She shrugged lightly, nocking the last arrow, and aimed for her target. 

"Listen, I know we've known each other for like fifteen years so…" 

"…you want to ask me out on a date?" Without averting her eyes, she finished his sentence with her past experience with guys who were only following their hormones. "Just say so." 

"I was more thinking of just a dinner tonight, then a little walk… Just a dinner, what do you say? Not a date, just a simple dinner between us as in between two friends." 

"I'm free tonight, but don't consider me your girl." Smiling, she shot a warning glare at her friend, keeping the arrow drew tightly against the string. 

"Yeah—I've heard the results about your past…" He blushed with an uncontrollable smile on his face. 

"Don't worry. Seeing that we've known each other for quite sometime and this is the very first time you've asked me out on a dinner, I'll be nice. We'll see how it goes tonight, kay?" 

She aimed for her target again. Somehow, the pessimistic feeling she had every time a single guy asked her out, regardless whether she liked them or not, crept in. Her intuition had been time-tested over and over again and they proved to be correct all the time. The last time she went on a date, it ended up disastrous when the guy took her to the same restaurant five other guys took her. And turned out to be worse when the teenaged male showed the same 'interest' in the murals of angels (which really were Angelus before they became extinct during the Holy Holocaust) handpainted to the ceiling of the extravagant dining place as others. 

"Alright! I hope I'm containing myself well." 

"Where do you plan to have your dinner?" 

"I was thinking of a surprise." 

Shannon sighed secretly._ Okay, okay, you're going to take me to the most lavish restaurant this city can offer, and you'll be marveling at the Hellenic Angelus artworks and yapping my ears off about your so-called knowledge of Angelus._

"Alright. You better give me one helluva of a surprise." 

_During all the time, the only question you're thinking of is how fast it'll take you to get me on your bed with my legs apart. Just like hundreds of guys who I shot down long beforehand._

"Just wondering, how do you know what I was going to ask you?" 

Shannon paused for a moment, then slowly said, "Sixth sense." 

"Bye! Five at your house!" And he was off. 

_C for cute, but not for cuddly… Maybe he'll be better than those other bastards. Ought to give him credit for trying. But still, he'd only receive my wrath if he was no different._

She released the arrow. 

_Bull's eye._

* * * * * 

"What? He's trying to get your attention finally!?" Emu, one of Shannon's classmates in the Pilgrion Academy of Law Enforcement, couldn't resist giggling. 

Changing into her civilian clothing after her hand-on patrolling for her training, Shannon tossed her uniform into her locker, "What are you giggling about? It's just a dinner. Beside, it's not like I give in to guys' wangs as easily as…" She whispered her example into her friend's ear. 

"Well, give him a chance at least! Although you may be one of the cutest and sharpest in the Elite Archery Girls, why haven't you gotten yourself a boyfriend yet? Those guys are still killing for you!" Elite Archery Girls was a nickname for the female portion of the Archer Division of the Academy. 

"Eh, actually, I did. At least until five years ago." She closed the locker and snapped the lock in place. 

"Well, how about those other guys who you went on one date with?" 

"Cute, but not serious enough. Nor they're loyal enough. Half of them have girlfriends when they flirted with me." 

"Jeez, Shannie, you ought to loosen up and have some fun! You can't seriously let all those cuteness go waste!" 

"I'm having fun." 

"I mean you-know-what." Emu leaned in with the word 'sly' written all over her face. 

"If I'm going to lose my virginity, I'm not losing it to some random guy." Shannon slung her knapsack over her shoulder. 

The other girl was beginning to show signs of retirement, "Why are you taking that chastity stuff so seriously? It's not like it's against the law! Beside, I don't think your foster parents would know!" 

"Aw come on, give it up… You know you have far more experience than me." The falcon zoanthrope begged her friend. "Oh and, since when I said I have a chastity promise to keep? I'm just still looking for the right guy." 

"At least give that first kiss of your to someone! I can introduce ya to some hot guys at the bar!" 

"Sorry to hurt your heart, but I gotta go now. See ya later!" Shannon gave her girlfriend a quick hug and left the change room. 

"If you're still looking, then seriously there's no one in Pilgrion for you…" 

* * * * * 

Shannon walked down the street, glancing around her surrounding. The houses were about to be refitted for the approaching winter. The soft carpet of brown, red, and yellow leaves under her feet padded every of her steps comfortably. The trees were still clinching to their fragile leaves, as if unwilling to give up to the winter. Her eyes admired a chipmunk innocently climbing up a tree and busily preparing for the transition between seasons. Although the city was surrounded by evergreen, Shannon found the seasonal trees to be more tranquilizing and admirable, especially cherry blossoms. 

She could see her house not far before her, a two-story brown house with enough room at the yard to play soccer on. Behind the houses behind her houses was a waterfront that made for a soothing walk with a beautiful view of the opposing shore. Slinging the knapsack bag on her right shoulder and holding the strap with her right hand, she reached out for the brass-colored knob on the waist-high gate, pushed it away from her, and threw it behind her, taking quick and light steps to the door. 

_It's only four fifty-five, enough time._

She inserted her key into the lock and was about to twist it when the door opened with a man behind it. He was holding a single white rose wrapped delicately in clear plastic. 

"Welcome back home!" 

It was Matt. 

* * * * * 

"Wow, I didn't know that you painted the entire house!" Matt exclaimed and politely pushed a piece of meatloaf into his mouth with a fork. 

Karibamaru Tsunami heartily smiled, cutting his dinner steak. Meanwhile his wife Yume Tsunami studied Matt with those gentle eyes of her. 

Here I am. Having second-guessed that he'd take me out and instead, he came here and cooked the entire dinner by himself. Now he's eating dinner with me and my parents. And he isn't talking about Angelus. 

Karibamaru put down his knife and wiped his mouth. His hair was mostly grey, and light wrinkles covered his strong face. Every of his movements were well planned out and graceful. His eyes twinkled with glints of reassurance, looking from Shannon to Matt, then back to his adoptive daughter. Yume unintentionally mirrored her husband's movements with a warm smile on her face. The little of her food was gone from her plate. Every time she blinks, the wrinkles on her face deepened. She wore a black wig in an attempt to mask her baldness; it wasn't easy for her being a cancer victim, receiving chemotherapy alone in her house while her husband and her daughter worked five days a week. However Shannon had been a light of the Tsunami couple for the last nineteen years, it was hard to compare Shannon with the foster parents. Shannon had big chocolate eyes that glimmered in innocence, unlike her parents' pairs of diligent, yet weary eyes. For a daughter of a couple with wide chin, the falcon zoanthrope had a narrow chin. 

If a person thinks that Shannon had been placed on the Tsunami couple's doorstep, he couldn't be anymore right. After all, Yume had been diagnosed with infertility long ago. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Tsunami, both of you must be very proud of her!" 

"We are, son. And we're damn proud of her!" Mr. Tsunami deliberately inserted a piece of carrot into her mouth, his eyes never leaving the guest. 

Shannon's heart sighed, fidgeting with her food in embarrassed silence. She had been fine going out with people for dinners, but not with a friendly member of opposite sex in her house—with her parents. _Great, I think my parents are interested in him now. They could barely remember him—the last time they met him was ten years ago when I just started high school. He was only ten back then…_

When the dinner ended, Shannon stood up and reached out for the plates. "I'll put those dishes away." 

Before her friend could argue, she scurried into the kitchen, leaving him alone with her parents. Cautiously placing the dishes in the sink, she turned on the water tap and rinsed the dishes. The sound of running water did nothing hindering her father's voice. 

"Say—what plan do you have for my daughter?" 

She almost dropped the plate she was holding. 

"Sir, just a dinner between friends." 

She let out a sigh of relief. It was her mother's turn. 

"Darling, are you interesting in our precious Shannie?" 

Shannon's jaw dropped at her parents' vehement interrogation. _What are they trying to do, embarrass me? I'm not a thirteen years old girl on my first date!_

"Frankly, we're only friends." 

_Thank a lot._ However her father let out a snicker. 

"Son, don't keep it to yourself, I—." 

"Daaaad!" 

* * * * * 

"I'm sorry for my parents…" Shannon sighed, leaning against the wooden railing on the waterfront facing the water. Matt was leaning against it beside her as she kept a considerable distance away from him. The sun had finally completely went down and the streetlights turned on, illuminating the breezy waterfront palely. The moon was showing her pale face barely above the watery horizon. Shannon placed her chin on her crossed arms as she glanced at the lights on the opposite shore of the river, Matt's gift dangled from a hand. 

"It's okay. I don't mind these kind of questions, really." 

"Thanks." Shannon said without even looking at him. 

"For what?" 

"For telling the truth. Geez, parents are still very annoying. Especially when you boys come over." 

"Yeah. Funny that I didn't feel so nervous since that this is the first time I have a dinner with you and for family…" 

"That's because you already met other girls' parents." 

"Hey, I can't resist twenty-four seven for twenty years." It was followed by what Shannon deemed as an awkward silence. 

"Yeah right." 

He let out a chuckle, and turned his back against the railing, putting his hands inside his pants pocket. "Um, there's something that I should have tell you." 

"What?" She looked at him, seemingly uninterested. 

Can I go back into my house so I can have a good night's sleep? I've had enough for today… 

Matt looked around the waterfront and found it to be already abandoned, then his eyes locked with her. There was a pale twinkle of passion within the azure eyes. "Actually, I lied." 

"About what?" Her body stiffened. 

"Feelings for you." 

Without a warning, he took a step toward Shannon and wrapped his arms tightly around her slender form. He leaned in and his lips instantly met with her. 

* * * * * 

Shannon didn't move; her body just froze in wide-eyed surprise as he pressed his lips tightly against her. For a second, she neither said anything nor did anything. While he seemed to enjoy the sensation, Shannon felt nothing. Nothing at all. As soon as she regained the control of her body, she jerked her head back and planted her hands on his chest, shoving him away from her body hard to distance him from her as far as possible. She wiped her mouth with the back of a hand furiously and spat dry while Matt only stepped back, his arms partially open for a hug. He was clearly hurt. 

"What are you doing!?" Shannon almost shouted angrily, rubbing her lips fiercely. 

"Shannie… I love you." He answered with the fantasy that she would just fall into his waiting arms. 

"So what!? You can't go around kissing girls just because you have the slightest interest in them!" 

"…I'm sorry about that. Just that I have always wanted to wrap my arms around your delicate form…" 

"You calling me delicate? How long have you had your—your crush on me!?" Her face was red with colors. 

"Almost three years." 

"So what? Listen, you sonuvabitch, I never had intention to be in love with you! Nor you are my type of guy!" She stabbed. "Here, take your fucking gift back! You really need to think before you give this to a girl!" 

Throwing the white rose at Matt, she stormed off angrily for her home, ignoring her name being called out and his sobbing… 

* * * * * 

_That son of a bitch!_

She lied down on her bed, hugging a large teddy bear tightly to her chest. That son of a bitch! 

_I still can taste him!_

She rubbed her lips resentfully again. If the teddy bear was a living being, it would have been strangled to death. There was a knock on the door to her room. She almost jumped and quickly calmed herself down, pretending to be fine sitting on her bed cross-legged with the cuddly teddy bear in her arms. 

"Come in!" 

It was her mother with a sunlit smile. Slowly and carefully opening the door, she took deliberate, almost limping steps and sat down next to her. 

"What is it, ma?" She asked, holding the teddy bear's face next to her. 

Her mother only smiled at her for a second. 

_…What now?_

"Shannie, Matt's a good guy." 

_Oh Lord no_. "…Yeah." She forced herself to concur, avoiding eye contact. 

Her mother patted her knee with a bony hand. "I saw both of you together. It was a sweet moment." 

_Holy shit, what have he done now!? _"What did I do?" She brought out only her innocent-girl persona. 

"Shannie, you don't have to pretend. It was nice of you and Matt being together; both of you will be a fine couple." 

"Mom! I don't have anything with him!" Shannon's terrified eyes widened, begging her mother. 

"I know how it feels to be in your first romance. You don't want anyone to know about it in the beginning, but later on, you'll be more comfortable. I think I should leave you alone." She smiled, stood up, and made for the doorway. 

"Mooom!" 

Her mother paused at the door for a moment and left a message before disappearing. "I remembered my very first kiss with a boy, and he was your father." 

After Mrs Tsunami was gone, Shannon jumped off her bed and closed the door, locking it out of embarrassment. Still clutching to her furry teddy bear, she leaned against the door as if to hold off an invader. The phone rang. 

"Shannie, it's for you!" Her father called out from downstairs. 

She snatched her pink phone sitting on a night table just next to the door and held the receiver to her ear. Karibamaru mercifully hung up, leaving his daughter alone on the line with Emu. 

"Yo Shannie! That was one helluva a romantic first kiss you've got!" 

"**_WHAT!?_**" 

"Whoa… Don't be so embarrassed. I can see the waterfront even from the opposite shore. Call it a telescope." 

"Why the hell are you peeking!?" 

"Oh, the waterfront has its share of romantic couples. So…" 

"Seriously, I really don't have anything with that son of a bitch! I already kicked him away!" 

"Oh, don't worry. Because you're my friend, I didn't stay long enough. While I may have missed the last part, I'm sure that you couldn't resist… Say, is Matt here in your room right now?" A giggle. 

"You're out of your mind." 

"Perhaps. At least your prayer for the perfect guy's answered! Say hi to Matt for me!" 

"Wait—." The other side hung up with a click, leaving the falcon zoanthrope panicking to a beeping phone. 

She removed it from her ear, stared at it, and slammed it hard into its place. 

_Oh lord! I have never, never been SO embarrassed! Curse that motherfucker! He has NO shame!_

Her back slid down the door, and she sat on the ground hugging her knees and the teddy bear, fighting tears of shame. 

_What now!? Emu makes gossip spread out as fast as wildfire! Right now she's chattering another girls' ears off! By tomorrow morning, the entire city would misunderstand me. If they ever found out…_

For the next few minutes, she sat in silence with her face buried in her arms, contemplating on what to do to avoid the rumors. 

_What I wouldn't give to leave here…_

An idea popped up. 

_Wait. I'm a fourth-year student in Academy. I can go on a hand-on out-of-country bounty hunt all by myself. Beside, it's essential, and I get a time limit of three months! By the time I come back, with or without a head, the rumors would be already gone!_

She shot up and quickly searched her room for the phone number to application for the hunt… 

* * * * * 

"Mom! Dad! I'm away now!" She said uneasily, with a large traveling backpack. Her bow and quiver of arrows were stowed away, along with a back up concealed firearm for trainees. 

_Good thing that I can initiate the hunt as soon as I want… Sorry, mom, dad… I don't even want to find out what they're talking about me right now…_

"Take care of yourself, Shannie! I love you!" Her mother waved back with a smile, fighting back tears in her husband's arm. 

"I'll take care of myself! I'm not a little girl anymore! Take good care of yourself as well, ma! See you in a few months! I love you, too, mommy and dad!" 

With that, she jogged down the street toward her training center to pick up a few last equipments. 

_Just like that, I'm away… Hopefully, I'll enjoy my so-called bounty hunt…_

Fully prepared to leave her city after two hours of leaving her home, Shannon was walking toward the exit of the city. Before her would be a lush forest to cross, then there would be a mountain in the way. While others would just simply go around it, she packed her mountain climbing equipment. She would take her time crossing the border, having finished saying her goodbye to all of her friends except for one. Beside, it wouldn't matter if she failed to find the bounty or not. To her, it was more of a break than an essential part of training. However, the only friend she didn't wave goodbye to was waiting for her. 

"I heard you're already leaving." Matt said sorrowfully, his eyes red from tears of rejection and sleep deprivation. 

_Cut the drama, will ya!?_

"Yes. It's just a part of training." Shannon shrugged. 

"You know that this bounty hunt is very much optional." He said coldly. 

"Listen. I'm very sorry about what I did yesterday. It's just that… I don't feel any chemistry between us." 

Matt was silent, and looked away from her. 

"Farewell, take care of yourself and good luck with your trip." 

"I'll take care of myself, Matt." 

Another awkward silence. Shannon was feeling a ping of regret and sorry for her childhood friend. 

_What have I done…? Why am I being so selfish…? Forgive me…_"Matt. Don't be so sad. You're crying like a baby. We're still friends!" 

"I guess so…" 

_Finally…_

"Yes. Cheer up. Don't worry, I'll be back. We are still friends." She walked over to him and patted his back, smiling. 

"Shannon…" He painfully looked at her with a smile on his face 

"Yes?" 

He hugged her in silence, and lightly that Shannon realized that he was hugging her as a close friend. Slowly, she hugged back lightly before parting. "Take good care of yourself, Shannie." 

"I will. Take good care of yourself as well! Still friends!" 

"Still friends! Goodbye!" That was their farewell, and she walked away with one last glance over her shoulder and waved. 

* * * * * 

_Okay, this should be it. The shortest route to the border that'll shave five days of traveling. I have yet to reach the summit, but I'd climb only one quarter of the mountain's height, but I can always tackle it later on…_

At the same day, several hours later, she found herself at the base of a steep cliff. She studied the face of the cliff joyfully. Cautiously and armed with a pair of small pickaxes, she began her journey up the cliff… 

-----   
**Author's Note:** Yay yay yay! Bull's eye! ^___^ The time is nigh... Just one more intro. Just one more and the serious stuff can start! Wait for it: "Chapter 8: Sanguinary Tears"! 


	9. Sanguinary Tear

**FINALLY, the final intro's here! Heh, I thought it's going to be longer than Kenji's, but it isnt... Anyway, enjoy! I thank you readers for your patience very much! ^______^******

**Chapter 8: Sanguinary Tears**

The eighth nation of the world stood deep in the middle of the ocean, being physically disconnected from all other kingdoms, yet having a direct route to each of seven other kingdoms via the blue sea and sky. Draconia, the Kingdom of Shadow, or more famously known as the Kingdom of Dragons, stood on the exactly opposite side of the same axle with Verselium. Draconia, a kingdom composed of only a circular island slightly smaller than other countries, continued living up to its name. From above in the sky, the entire country of Draconia looked like a rough-edged pie missing a one-quarter slice. Filling the missing quarter were archipelagoes of various islands with wide water passages allowing for easy traveling to the hundred-kilometre wide lake scattered with smaller islands just next to the very center of the island. The lake was the Cove of Draco, and its overseer was the fabled city of Dragons, Draco. 

The city was a titanic and beautiful one, a city that was perfectly circular with a radius of over three kilometres. One heavily reinforced wall reaching up to fifty stories high into air lined the entire contour of the medieval-styled metropolis, with several gaping gates half of the height of the wall welcoming travelers from ground, sea, and sky. Four black massive, looming spires stood proudly in the four opposing corners of the city, being twice the height of the solid wall. In the middle of the city, the largest freestanding tower next to the Grand Library of Sol stood serenely at over seventeen hundred feet high into air. The Grand Tower of Draco continued to watch over the Draco, providing for its residents just like it had been for over 40,000 years. From the top of the tower, one can easily point at the direction of one of the seven; Pilgrion is directly were the Cove of Draco pointed to. Listed clockwise from Pilgrion were Firavana, Icion, Tech, Serpentine, Terra and Scion. An extinct volcano marked the direction to Firavana. A snowcapped innocent peak points to Icion. A flat valley with a dividing stream led to both Tech and Serpentine. A lush, yet dangerous forest showed the path to Terra and Scion.   
  
There, dragons of various species and types populated the city. Dragons ranging from the size of a rat to fifty-metre large dwelled and lived among humanoids as equals. Dragons of many different elements thrived there, thanks to the diverse landscape of the massive island. Dwelling comfortably among the reptilian race was a diversity of humanoids. Half-dragons, zoanthropes and even pure humans lived harmoniously, filling and bustling in the streets of the city, celebrating everyday of their lives while fighters and mages of all sorts trained diligently in the Grand Tower. The air was also bustling with peacekeeping dragons patrolling the air. Some flew sole. Some flew with their humanoid partners on their bare back. 

A dragon zoanthrope, Agemo Krimagi stared down at the city from high in the sky, high above the tranquil water of Draconian Cove. Although his dark brown eyes had been tirelessly admiring the city and the natural scenery of the surrounding every time he took flight with his pure dragon buddy, Norok, he still concentrated on his duty patrolling the sky as a captain of the Elite Elementshifter Division of the Dragonrider Legion. Agemo was a man of twenty years old, and his large, innocent-looking eyes were already thick with experiences that he wouldn't exactly call pleasant. In his casual patrolling suit, he wore only his favorite long-sleeved ninja gi with the arm cuffs in tatters and fluttering in the breeze penetrating his exposed dark brown hair. He didn't look like a man of physical strength, with a slender, yet fit build. His weapon was merely a six-foot long spear slinging diagonally across his back, but that wasn't his primary weapon. His somewhat loose ninja gi looked perfectly unarmed, but in fact was hiding the shinobi tools. As a rare mix of a Dragon Ninja and a Dragonrider, he still carried a perfectly concealed arsenal of shinobi tools varying from shurikens to kunai to ropes and anything else that would help him to diffuse difficult situation in a non-lethal manner. 

With Agemo sitting on his back slightly in front of his gently flapping pair of titanic wings was Norok, a pure dragon measuring ten metres from nose to the tip of his tail. The dragon's long tail swayed lightly in the gliding breeze and his long neck craned to allow his pair of crimson eyes a better view of the water below. His black scaled glimmered in the nude sunlight, his powerful limbs folded below him with just his talons dangling. With two curved horns, the dragon's head was on the side of a crocodile. Norok was an elementshifter—meaning he could shift his innate alignment with the natural forces. Being simply an elementshifter alone is rare, but Norok was capable of shifting between all eight elements in comparison of other elementshifter's three or four. 

Ever since receiving five years of training from his first and most influential ninjutsu master, who resigned from Draco when his apprentice was seven, Agemo had been somewhat of a prodigy student and had been awarded just like any other prodigies. All he could remember of his very first and closest teacher was his blue hair, but otherwise he had lost most of the visual memory of the master, whose name he even forgot! He was merely two when he was taken ought of his orphanage and was trained to become a Dragon Ninja by his blue-haired master, and now that he hadn't seen him for almost thirteen years. Still, his master's fast-paced training, which focused not on just his skills but also his morals continued to be Agemo's way of life—a modest and benevolent one except for his alter ego. Despite the fierce training of many other masters whom Agemo spent his time with, he still couldn't achieve two things: One was to kill and other was to tame his dragon soul. 

Like other Draconian prodigies, he was awarded according to his serene personality. However, it was one of the special ceremonies that united Agemo with Norok and two cursed gifts. And it was how his friendship with his best friend began. 

The Dragon Ninja had noticed something different in Norok today, but he couldn't tell what. The dragon had been unusually quiet and inattention today, his mind seemingly preoccupied with something. Usually, the Elementshifter had been quite energetic and talkative for a dragon, and was always looking for something to think about. Suddenly, the black dragon fanned out his wings and pumped them, hovering in midair. 

"Norok, what's wrong?" Agemo asked in a concerned tone, having lived with Norok for over ten years. 

The dragon craned his neck, shot a depressed look, and growled in the language of Dragons. 

Agemo… I don't know.> 

"What's wrong? Calm down and tell me." The Dragon Ninja leaned in worried. He had been spending ten years with the Elementshifter, and each had his time of up and down. However, it was usually Agemo that suffered. It was the first time he saw Norok concerned in over two years. He hoped nothing wrong was happening to his best friend. 

…Perhaps it's nothing.> The dragon shook his head and resumed on his flight. 

"If you have something on your mind, please tell me, my best friend." The dragon zoanthrope nodded. A minute into the resumed flight, Norok suddenly stopped again and jerked his head from side to side, as if sensing invisible dangers lurking within the clear, exposed sky. "Norok? What's happening?" 

Without a warning, the dragon suddenly lowered his neck and clasped his taloned forepaws around his head, his entire body shaking as in if pain. "Norok! Are you alright!? Norok! Calm down! Calm down!" 

In reply to Agemo's concern, the dragon threw his head back high into the sky and let out a pained roar, flapping his wings erratically. Agemo held onto the dragon's back, almost threw off in surprise and let out a "whoa". When asking his friend again, the humanoid suddenly found himself barely holding to Norok's back as the dragon threw his back again. The Dragon Ninja's surprise combined with his lack of physical strength caused him to feel his fingers slipping from the dragon's back spikes. With one final, mighty jerk of his body, Agemo was threw off and was about to recover in mid air when the dragon twisted around in air once, whipping his tail through air and smashing it squarely into Agemo's chest. 

"Ugh!" The Dragon Ninja was knocked breathlessly pummeling downward toward the water as the dragon seemed to have suddenly reassured himself, if only slightly. The Elementshifter let out a roaring message to his falling friend with a sorry look in his eyes. With that said, the dragon pumped his wings powerfully and dived away from Agemo, away from Draco, toward Pilgrion. The last thing the dragon zoanthrope saw of his friend was Norok's black scale shifting into a light greenish as the dragon shifted into Wind for a burst of speed. And Norok was disappearing into distance. 

"Norok!" Agemo only watched in disbelief as he fell headfirst. 

_What's happening to you? Why are you suddenly like that? Has someone taken control of you?_

The questions flashed in his inquiring mind, and he looked down to find the body of aquamarine water rushing up to meet him eagerly… 

* * * * * 

…and that was how Norok flew off. I would like to require the permission to go after my best friend.> Agemo reported later, kneeling on a knee in front of the five Elder Dragons. 

It was a room brightly lit by the sunlight pouring in from the window behind the five leaders of Draco, where the five sat in their respective seats in a third-circle. Out of the five, the oldest was also one of the few mature and surviving witnesses of the Holy Holocaust 30,000 years ago. The others were very old compared to the dragon race, but they didn't seem affected by age except for their appearances. Three were pure dragons each the size of a human, sitting on their four while listening carefully. The other two were demi-dragons, one in her half-dragon form, the other in his human form. The Elder dragons looked at each other, but they weren't worried. No verbal words were exchanged, and Agemo knew they were discussing his request telepathically. 

The Dragon Ninja's clothing and hair was still moist from the painful dip into the water, but nobody seemed to pay attention to it. Kazima, the younger and humanoid demi-dragon, looked at Agemo, cocked his head to one side, and spoke in Draconian with a warm smile on his lips. 

Captain Agemo Krimagi, how long would you like to have to search for Norok?> 

Dragon Kazima, if it all goes well, I believe I can find and assess him within a month.> 

Very well, but it is not the first time that a dragon would escape for no reason. It is merely a instinct, one that is unique to each soul. However, I do not know nor I can predict Norok's action.> Kazima nodded lightly, gently stroking his beard of pure whiteness. There was another brief silence of telepathy. Agemo waited, while his heart pumped nervously on whether would he be allowed to seek for his best friend? 

After a deliberate nod, Azure, a bluish dragon with white talons, spoke. We've decided that you are allowed to take your time. And we recommend you a vacation.> 

_A vacation? The Elder Dragons are allowing me to take a vacation?_ Agemo couldn't believe it. It was only the third time he had personally faced them in five years. The last two times were basically to privately accept his two promotions, as he required. 

Dragons, dare I ask why are you giving me such a luxury?> He looked up at Azure's eyes with only modest honesty. 

It was Oboroma's turn to speak. Captain Agemo Krimagi, we have noticed your non-stop, graceful service to the city. You have never taken a day off and worked everyday regardless of any events, and you have spend most of your free time serving the city among the anti-racism forces. For two straight years, you have been working without a break longer than periods of ten hours. You have saved over two hundred days of sick days and vacation alike. Am I correct?> 

Yes, that would be correct.> 

Oboroma: This is the reason. Not only you have showed outstanding potentials since you were young, you have never stopped working hard. Think of it as your reward for your service as one of our most loyal member; we say, take a vacation, and we would not mind if you take the season off.> 

Dragons, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! I still don't believe I would need such a luxury. I will return as soon as I have find Norok.> 

It is totally up to you.> Halima, a demi-dragon held out a gentle palm. 

_Kirimagi. I can't forget about him._

Dragons? Can you please check on the status of my dragon seal? I don't want him to be released any time soon.> 

This will not be a problem. Your dragon soul is well sealed and fine. Beside, you have sealed him for three straight years without a slightest incident.> Kazima chuckled. 

Thank you, I am just asking—I do not wish for another…> Agemo's voice trailed off, fighting to repress the memories that were the courtesy of Kirimagi. 

Kazima: It won't happen.> 

Thank you very much, I shall depart now.> The young dragon zoanthrope bowed his head and stood up, heading for the exit. 

Take Kimula and Kimita with you. You may depart as early as before dawn.> It was Yisaine, the Holy Holocaust survivor. 

There was a moment of understanding silence. 

I will.> 

* * * * * 

The moist, penetrating air didn't help to dry Agemo's damp garments as he took the small boat toward his home in the lake were Norok was last seen. Swiftly, his outboard motor board circled around the tall, yet small island composed of only a tiny mountain surrounded by a ring of meadows, evergreen forest, and occasional patches of bamboo forest. Although it was small in comparison to other rare island residences, it covered an area of one square kilometre out of the lake's thousands. With the island sitting close to the harbor of the grand city, yet never close to the daily commercial sea traffic, he found it to be a desirable place to live by himself. 

He could see the small, desolated pier that made for his private dock. He killed the outboard motor and let the boat cruise toward the dock. After tying the boat securely to the dock, he hopped onto the wooden walkway and headed for the brown mansion that stood just before him. He never bought the island, but rather, he won it from a charity lottery, which he donated to, a few years ago. Although he would prefer to give the island for a family to live in, it wasn't available for re-selling for another decade. Ever since he moved in the pre-furniture mansion, he used only four rooms for his bare living and left the plastic covers on most furniture to gather dust. Now, the brown wooden Japanese-style mansion with ornaments of dragons seemed a bit old with a large untrimmed and unfenced front yard despite the lack of traffic. The two-story house would function well as an inn or a dormitory, but for now, most of roomy rooms were unused. From the corners of the roof, statues of dragons looked down, greeting the arrival with their ruby eyes and folded wings. Behind the mansion was a small botanical garden filled with pleasant flowers and well-tended shrubbery and a small trail leading to the natural hot springs. Although the house was almost propping its back against a rock hill, the sunlight had no problem finding its way down to the backyard and pour into the two springs. The two separate hot spring sat inside a shallow, wide cave where the ceiling hung over the naturally heated body of waters for privacy from the eyes of airborne beings flying overhead. 

He approached the wooden door by himself, and usually that was when the Elementshifter, in his shrunken form, would pop out from behind the door. 

_Norok will simply drop from the ceiling and say 'boo', just like those rare instances were I come home alone…_

Agemo pushed open the front door and stood in contemplating silence, facing an empty porch while half-expecting a one-metre long Norok to drop from the ceiling. He looked up at the small section of the wooden ceiling filled with deep claw marks for a brief moment, then walked in, closed the door behind him, took off his sandal, and headed directly for his room. 

* * * * * 

_Kimula and Kimita… Why would the Elder dragons want me to bring them along?_

He walked down the dark stair to the basement, flicking on the dim lights at the bottom. Here, he was encountered with a metallic door locked with chains. There was no trace of a visible lock or keyhole, just a piece of paper with reddish runes sticking to the chains. It was a single-use magic lock. He stared at the paper momentarily. 

_They have the experience, so they know the best for me… After all, the two were their gifts for me…_

He bit his thumb and a drop of blood oozed from the tear; he didn't look at the blood. He simply pressed his thumb against the reddish kanji letter meaning 'lock' surrounded by other basic Draconian runes of complicatedly fluid lines. The paper ignited in blue flames and disappeared within a blink of an eye, along with the chains. With the seal easily opened, he pushed the door in slowly. Behind the door was a very small room with chains dangling from the dark ceiling. Sieving through the chains that were once a mean of his own restraints before he received his Dragon Seal, he reached a small pedestal with a basic sword holder. Lying on the sword holder were two long black sheaths with scaled hilts jutting out. The pair of long black sheathed hid the silvery blades of the blessed and cursed gifts—Kimula and Kimita, the twin katana. One of the katana had a bluish-green hilt and was known as Kimula, meaning Deception in Draconian. The Kimita had a dark green hilt, and its name meant Betrayal. Agemo had yet to utilize the magical properties of the dual katana in a real battle, and their undesirable defensive mechanism had took lives already. Every time when someone beside Agemo or one of the Elder Dragons attempt to wield the dual katana, their bodies were controlled by an invisible and were forced to commit seppuku, or suicide, regardless of the person's will unless one of the aforementioned exceptions interfered. 

Sighing depressingly, he slowly removed the dual katana from their holding place one by one, and wrapped them in a brown blanket he brought down with. Now he had everything he needed, and the break of dawn was only several hours later. With the blessed and cursed pair of weapons covered delicately, he turned around and left. 

* * * * * 

"Dragon, you're ready to go!" A crew called out to Agemo. 

Fresh after the several-hours long boat trip to the seaport town at the Pilgrion-ward shore, he watched the crew setting up the flying platforms, where demi-dragons and other flying zoanthropes take advantage of the powerful updraft to start a long flight. The sky was still dark without a single beam of sunlight, but the nocturnal activity of the moon was almost done for. With his backpack and the dual katana strapped securely to his back, he walked to the middle of the ten-metre wide square platform. There, he bent over slightly as to touch the ground, in a stance like a runner ready to burst out of the starting line. He concentrated on the grey horizon as the nearby crew flashed him a thumb-up and offered a farewell. He wore another navy ninja gi, but it was slightly different from his usual. His garments were slightly looser, had no pockets to hide his shinobi tools, and two large vertical rips on the back revealed small trace of his back. 

"How's the current?" He asked, hiding his anxiety. 

"The current? Oh, it's high and strong! You should be able to reach an upward of a few hundred kilometres per hour. Be careful, though. Don't let the little breeze rip your wings out." 

_Thanks. That is certainly comforting._

"Oh yeah, I almost forget to give you the energy pill. You'll need to take it for the flight; it is no walk in park." A crew jogged over to the waiting dragon zoanthrope and handed him a brown, chocolate-colored pill. Agemo thanked, took the pill, and popped it into his mouth like a candy. "See you later, Dragon!" 

Agemo nodded and smiled tiresomely. He broke into a sprint. With the backpack weighing him down, he ran in a wide and conservative stride. Soon, he was right at the edge of the platform with both of his legs bent and coiled. Fearlessly, he leaped off with all his might. Wind quickly blasted in his face from below as he sailed through the air. Below him, the foamy waves continued clashing against the steep and solid rock face. With nothing holding him in air, he began to fall in an arc. As soon as the gravity regained its hold on his body, he aligned himself in midair so that he fell headfirst. He pummeled for a second as the howling wind began to intensify against his body. Conjuring up his genes' anthropomorphic abilities, he stretched out his arms and a pair of large, black membraneous wings unfurled themselves from Agemo's back out of the two large rips on the back of his garments. Clearly of dragon inheritance, the two wings were almost larger than even Agemo himself and each had five long spiny 'fingers' ending in small claws. Three talons cracked at where the wing fingers were conjoined to the slender bone leading to his back. He only extended his titanic wings for a moment before wrapping them around his slender body and his body began twisting in the air. When he snapped his titanic wings open again, he had completed his transformation. 

In his beast form, he was like every other zoanthropes: He took on an extreme resemblance with his representing creature, only with a slightly more humanoid body frame allowing for bipedal walking as well as on all four. His head had transformed into a sharp dragon head with red eyes and four long, straight horns pointing behind him. His fingers and toes condensed into black talons longer and thicker than his original humanoid fingers. A long, slender tail had grown out of the base of his pants, and was now fluttering in the wings. A double-row of small spikes ran down from the back of his neck to the tip of his tail. His unusually reflective black scales glimmered in the dim light. With his wings outstretched and catching the powerful wind, he quickly lifted himself up and was ascending into the dark sky in a spiral with the aid of the updraft. 

He glanced down at the sleepy seaport. 

_Farewell, Draconia…_

* * * * * 

The sun now hung in the cloudless sky, halfway on its shining path toward the middle of the sky. After the lengthy six-hour flight, the demi-dragon was beginning to feel fatigued. Below him, the blue ocean seemed endless. He craned his neck, looking for a trace of green land in the horizon. In the distance, he could see signs of land as the water below him transformed from navy blue to bluish-green, then light green. The land was finally within sight. A long wavy line of abandoned beach dividing a forest from the water. He could feel his body beginning to ache and calculated that it would be a long time before he would fly again if he lands now. 

_Finally, land. However, I should fly for a few more hours… Can't bother walking too long._

With that, he dived downward in a gentle angle, curving gently with the powerful current propelling his lightweight body. Slowly, he began stretching out his partially folded wings and dropped out of the high wind. Now, he was gliding much lower to the ground, roughly twenty metres from the treetops. As he glided over the virgin forest, birds flew from their nests as the demi-dragon glided past harmlessly. It was all so innocent and peaceful… 

And the peaceful of illusion was shattered by one distressful roar. 

_What!? A dragon in danger!?_

Agemo recognized the roar for help, and quickly fanned out his wings, catching the air with it so he hovered momentarily as he pinpointed the source of the plea for help. He listened carefully. Another roar. He could recognize that the roar didn't belong to Norok and the owner of the voice was larger than five metres, but it wouldn't matter. Not with a dragon in such a grave danger that helps were required. 

He listened to the nature. 

Birds chirping. 

Leaves rustling. 

Footsteps pounding. 

_There!_

* * * * * 

"Stop it!" Agemo landed between the villagers and the trapped dragon from the sky, having reverted back to his human form. 

The savage villagers quickly stopped pulling on the chains that wrapped around the helpless dragon's body so tightly that it was bleeding. Their hungry, wild eyes stared soundlessly at the slender dark-haired man who just dropped from the sky with a large backpack on his back. Agemo maintained his cold posture as dozens pairs of penetrating eyes scanned him, then at the dragon filled with hunger. It was an untamed, uncivilized village isolated from the rest of the world, with primitive garments covering their skeletal bodies. 

_Oh Draco… What have they gone through?_

Are you alright!?> He asked the dragon behind him without tearing his eyes off the uneducated villagers. 

…Yes… Thank you for showing up… those… humans… were trying… to have me… for their… meals…> He choked painfully with several lengths of chains wrapped tightly around his slender neck. The dragon's wings were badly in tattered. 

"I demand an explanation." Agemo asked the guilty villagers. 

"We just want food!" One of them shouted angrily, jabbing a finger at the dragon. "Dragon, good food! Meat!" 

"It is illegal to kill a dragon. Don't you know that dragons are now equal to humans in rights and they are to be treated same—you can't eat us?" 

The hunger in the villagers' eyes turned into raging anger. 

"Dragons not humans! We humans better than dragons! You human, why helping it!?" 

Agemo knew he was in for it, but persisted. "As a law enforcer, I have the right to arrest all of you and take to you to the nearest Pilgrion authority. Release the dragon." 

An angry protester began chanting, "We want meat! We want meat!" Soon the rest followed suit. 

"You all will receive the basic needs you require, but killing a dragon is not the way—eating a dragon is no different than cannibalism. Please release the dragon." 

The village kept chanting, intensifying every second. Agemo knew a big trouble was ahead and secretly blamed his naiveness. 

_What have I done wrong? They just ignored my words!_

…do you have a magical mean of escaping…?> He whispered to the dragon with the villagers chanting furiously. 

Yes. Dimensional. It'll take me a second, but I can't do it tangled up like that.> 

Okay. As soon as you're free… Just leave.> 

_Do I have a choice?_

The protest was getting aggressive, and the people are raising their weapons with fires brewing within their bloodshot eyes. Agemo definitely didn't have a choice. He had to act quickly if he was going to save the dragon's live—and he must do it in a way with minimal harm to the village. Carefully, he undid the straps on his backpack and let it drop to the ground as the crowd showed off their collection of rusty scythes, hoes, and other various crude weapons. His forehead began to perspire. The chains were long, but they were very slender and anchored to the ground to both sides of him. All Agemo needed was seven freed chains ends. 

The ferocious savages charged. The Dragon Ninja's legs kicked into action. Before the crowd could charge close enough, he quickly kicked two separate chains free. The villagers seemed hellbent on killing the demi-dragon first as one of them dived for him with a hoe raised. By then, the Dragon Ninja was already ready. He grabbed the descending hoe and sidestepped the fatal blow, at the same time kicking another one free. Another villager charged. Agemo used the hoe-wielding villager's steel grip on the hoe to vault himself upward, delivering a clean and square swipe kick against three attackers in one fluid movement. However, the three villagers recovered quickly from the ninja's feeble kick. 

_It's not going to be easy…_

Two minutes later… 

Grunting painfully, he finally freed the dragon, blocking a downward slash with a scythe he recently tore out of another villager's hands. Shooting only an urging look at the grateful dragon, he watched as the dragon teleported himself to safety. When the dragon faded away in the bluish wake of the magic, Agemo felt a burden being lifted off from his shoulder and smiled. Now that the protected was safe, it was time to escape. However, there was a split-second lapse of concentration. Sharp pain suddenly attacked behind from the base of his neck and he could feel the first drop of blood drew. A hand instinctive clasped the bleeding gash on the back of his neck. 

A tickling sensation told him that the technological suppresser was destroyed, crushed by a blunt blow. The small metallic disk implanted to his back, on the base of his neck had endured several forceful blows in the past three years, but now it failed to withstand the blow. Now, it shattered… 

Along with the hold on Kirimagi. 

However, the villagers didn't seem to realize that they just released a beast from its cage. People continued yelling for the ninja's crimson blood to be splattered all over the ground, their metallic weapons clashing loudly. Agemo's heart sunk to the bottom. The villagers wouldn't give up anytime soon, and he continued deflecting fierce blows from all around him. With every clash of weapons, his already fatigued arms set off an alarm, but he couldn't see a way out, not with the violent mass of human bodies around him. The people kept screaming… 

Screaming… 

Screaming… 

…until fatigue became finally unbearable. Another lapse of concentration. A knife inserted itself in one of his arm, followed by a kick to the back of his knee. He dropped to his knees and weapons were all falling upon him simultaneously. His arms were burning in exhaustion and exceeded limitation, but he refused to die. He refused to die before finding the solace. Weapons clashed against the hoe Agemo suddenly held behind him, but they didn't deflect away. Rather, the primitive cutting tools were pressing powerfully against the two pair of his frail arms. His elbows were ready to give in anytime, unwilling to withstand the pain any longer… His mind began to spin… His vision begin to dim… 

_Human, can't you even push yourself? You are so pathetic that you needed a gimmick just to block me out._ A voice called out, causing the Dragon Ninja to widened his eyes in pure horror. 

"…No…" He muttered sorrowfully as the villagers continued their lustful seek for satisfaction of their hunger. 

Yes. I'm not going to die just because you can't hold yourself up. Just because you're so afraid of yourself. Kirimagi growled in his mind, and the last of his vision fainted away into abyssal void… 

* * * * * 

Agemo finally came back to himself, lying confusedly on his stomach. His fingers searched aimlessly, stroking the hard, rough ground. 

_What happened…? Was it all just a dream…?_

Groaning, he rolled over to his back and opened his aching eyes. Pain emanated from every single of his muscles, but he felt too exhausted to even scream. He felt strangely… accommodated to the pain, complemented with fullness in his stomach. He saw only the blue sky and the rest of his senses were too tired, or his mind was focused enough to analyze the situation. It all happened so quickly, that the memory of the savage village seemed to be just a blur. There, he stared up at the sky blankly for a moment as his body recovered slowly. The first thing that returned was his sense of smell, but the first smell came to his nose made him wonder. Another sniff returned the horror that came every time with Kirimagi. He smelled… 

…Blood. Burning… The stench of fresh death. 

Grunting, he raised his hands to survey them. They were covered in clotted crimson blood. 

_No… It can't be…_

The horror motivated his muscles to move with the little energy they have left. He tried to prop himself up, and felt a pain he never thought would come from fatigue. Then he realized the pain weren't from fatigue. His garments were in tatter, but without any visible cuts. However, his back hurt so much that he could barely bend it. Later, he realized that his back was covered with stab wounds that narrowly missed many of his vital organs. He finally found the strength to sit up in a half-sitting stance and looked around the scene of horror. 

All around him, the village was burned into the ground so literally that there was nothing left standing. The huts that once stood tightly were replaced by a plain of black, charred ground. Bodies triggered his horror—there were burned body parts all around the place, from all variety of people. He felt a stab of pain, unable to believe the gory scenery. His body shaking in fear, he turned over on his knees and found a fresh body, one that wasn't burned. 

The body was clearly of a boy's, despite having the face ripped off to reveal the pearly right skull, with an eye socket staring emptily into him. The top of his head was cracked open to reveal the gray matter partially consumed. His arms were gone, clearly tore out of their place. His throat was ripped out so much that he could see the spinal column gleaming. Agemo shifted his sights from the mangled face downward, and was instantly sickened. 

_H-his lower body had been ripped off!_

The body's chest was pried open like a maroon bowl empty save for the chunks of destroyed internal organs. The pelvis, joined with a pair of devoured legs, was thrown a considerable distance away to left the boy's body incomplete, with all of the trace of intestinal organs gone. Even the genital was dined on bloodily. Agemo felt a burning, sloppy liquid mass coming up his throat, and he didn't hold the vomiting back. 

What he vomited out were the boy's partially digested body parts and his face in tatter. 

* * * * * 

_…I'm just a killer…_

Agemo stared blankly at his own reflection on a nearby lake, washing blood from his injured body. The gashes on his body burned every time they were submerged into water, but he didn't mind. Serenely, he washed away the last trace of blood from his body and painfully put on fresh garments. The fabric stuck to his clotting wounds painfully and messily, but Agemo felt no need to treat them. He cupped his hands in the cool water and slowly rinsed his face with the held water, washing away the last trace of blood on his face. He resumed staring at his own reflection in the water. 

_Why? Why do I exist in the expense of others? I just killed an entire village by myself—and I don't even know the name of the village! I can't even give them a proper memorial!_

He stood up, leaving his tattered garments in a pile behind, and headed for where the village once was. 

_…If my purpose of existence is only to kill… I can just kill myself…_

He walked into the large area of blackened ground, where he personally cleaned up all the traces of dead bodies and buried them in one mass grave. He regretted painfully that the people couldn't receive even a proper farewell from the world, but he had no other choice. It was simply… unbearable to try to match dissected body parts to their badly burned owners. In the middle of the large clearing, a fresh handmade cross twice Agemo's height stood proudly. Words of sorrow, remorse, and agony were etched into one face of the cross with maroon writing of Agemo's own blood. His backpack didn't suffer much damage, nor Kimula and Kimita received any scratch from the chaos. His eyes seemed to be glued to the blanket wrapped around the dual katana, visualizing the silver blades stained with crimson of his own blood… His own hot, steaming blood from his own heart… 

_…Why not? No… I cannot think negatively like that already… Norok needs me…_

Norok would say, "Because your existence helps far more lives of people than you can count the stars." 

_Norok… Are you alright…?_

Agemo kneeled in front of the cross and bowed thrice deeply in the horrific memory of the unknown village. Slowly, he stood up and picked up his equipment. He shot one last look at the cross. Something weighed heavily on his chest. It was only a burden of six words, but they seemed to become overwhelming. Unable to breath under such stress, he said loudly and regretfully to be heard. 

He repeated it for several minutes 

He left with tears flowing down his cheeks. 

**_"I am sorry! Please forgive me!"_**

**-----**   
**Author's Note:** FINALLY, this is the end of the intros! The story and character interactions can officially begin! Think this chappy's a bit gory? You haven't seen anything... yet. 


	10. Wrath of Uriko

**Okay, I would like to shout out to Tiger5913 for constantly bugging me to get chapters done! ^_^ Here we go, the first non-introductory chapter! More of the same scene will happen next!**

**Chapter 9: Wrath of Uriko**

Kenji returned to last year. 

"Kio! You lost again! I'm the best!" Kenji threw his hands over his head in victory. 

"Damn you rat! Next time, I'm not going easy on you!" The tan haired boy jokingly threw a punch at his friend. 

"Well, hey, at least you're better with projectiles." 

A gentle hand planted on each boy's shoulder from behind, then patted their heads. 

"Kid, kid, let's not kid yourself." Scorch chuckled. "Remember what I taught you guys about lavaboarding?" 

"Yes sir. We got our Flame Resist spells already." 

"Boards?" 

"All good, checked." Kenji beat Kio to it. 

"We've got our gauntlets ready, so are our helmets…" 

"Good, boys, then you're all fitted to go." Scorch smiled widely and gave them a light shove. 

Kio slugged Kenji's arm. "Kenji, race you to the bottom!" 

Kio was suddenly a white blur down the river of lava, sliding on his metallic lava board agilely with his metal gauntlets glazing the hot, bubbling lava at every little turn. Kenji followed in silent agreement, zooming down to catch up with his buddy. The blue-haired demi-dragon grinned to himself and jumped onto the river of lava. Kio swerved through the obstacles jutting out of the flaming river agilely, as if his metallic lavaboard was attached to a railing. Kenji was faster with smaller turns, almost bombing down the river in a straight line. The hot winds penetrated his hair, blowing it into a fluttering tangle of black and blue. Both boys screamed in delight, and quickly Kenji was beside Kio. Their eyes locked for a moment. Kio was the first one to look forward. 

"Watch out!" Both of them quickly raised their hands and shoved at each other's palm, separating to avoid a large boulder jutting out in the middle of the river. Narrowly missing the obstacle, the two looked back and let out a hearty laugh. Scorch suddenly dashed into view from behind with a wall of lava in his wake. One second ago the youthful master was only several inches tall, the next second he wrapped his arms around both of his students' shoulder from behind. The master waved farewell and quickly passed them while riding the river with his board perpendicular to the flow and his back turned to the slope. His students quickly attempted to catch the demi-dragon. 

It was one of the happy moments. 

_One that no longer exist._

* * * * * 

"Ugh!" Painfully, Kenji shot up from his bed, clenching his ready-to-split head. 

_It hurts so much…_

"Kenji? You okay?" Scorch asked, sitting up on his bed opposite to Kenji. 

The student waved a bandaged hand, swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and buried his face in his palms to conceal his face. He wanted to cry, but there was neither sounds nor tear, just blankness. "…Yes, I'm okay…" 

The blue-haired man only studied his mourning apprentice, slowly stood up, and walked over to a table with a water-filled pitcher. The mole zoanthrope stared at the ground, hearing only the sound of water being poured out of the glass pitcher. There was no more background sounds of footsteps, no more discussing with Kio through the wall dividing their houses, no more his mother telling Kenji to quiet down. Just sound of water flowing and white noises from outside the inn room. 

_Kio… Mother… Why… Why it isn't nightmare!?_

"Kenji." Scorch held a glass of water next to the youth, who took it soundlessly and drank it to satisfy his dry throat. "Are you sure you are okay? How's your arm?" 

Kenji looked at his left hand, now with bandages wrapped securely around his palm and wrist. Beneath the dressing were serious burns from lavaboarding several days after leaving their homes. The very same river of molten rock where he and Kio fought to keep up with their master. The very same river where the students ended up making their master waiting for them and enjoying his handmade sandwich. He didn't say anything. 

"I shouldn't have let to take the shortcut." Scorch sat down on his bed, shaking his head regretfully. "You are too emotionally shaken." 

Kenji looked up at his master with a scowl and a sharp, cold glint in his eyes. "What choice do I have? I just want to kill those—those monsters for killing my, our families!?" 

"Yes, as much as I want to avenge them, but remember, you cannot just unleash your rage on anyone who you deem as your enemies." The man's calm, disciplined tone made Kenji's eyes burn. 

"Why? My enemies are the destroyers of innocence—they are just c-criminals who deserve to die. Every single of them." 

"Kenji." 

The older man looked into his student's fierce eyes. 

"Even if they are criminals. Guilty or not. Nobody deserves to die." 

"…are you implying that the person who ordered our village destroyed do not deserve to die?" This time, the boy was clenching his fists so tightly that his fingernails bit into and cut his palms, but the emotional pain drowned out the light pain. 

"That is not my point." 

"What is the point, then?" 

Silence. 

"Dragon, if you don't mind, I would like to sleep now. We are already several days into Verselium and we will need only a few more weeks to arrive at Sol where I-I w-will kill that—_that_ Agrimson." The boy dismissed the conversation and lied down on the bed with his back turned to his only surviving friend, pulling the cover over his shoulders. "Why did you choose to take this route? This way seemed to be taking a bit too much time." 

Scorch hesitated, and looked out the window at one certain constellation where the moon shined brightly within. "…Because I don't feel it is the best time for you to travel in a large mass. Go to sleep, good night." 

Kenji didn't go to sleep, just lying down with his eyes wide open and awake. Scorch's words seemed reasonable and true, but somehow, a nagging voice told him it was not the only reason. 

* * * * * 

_Wow, those guards are really that stupid! So much for border security!_

Uriko Nonomura hummed to herself, walking down the wide path in the middle of the forest. With her snowboard and winter clothing put away for the sake of getting used to the much warmer weather of Verselium, she carried a far lighter backpack, along with several new additions to her arsenal. It had been ten days since she crossed the Icion border into the adjacent country. While the King of Icion might be now fuming over her unknown whereabouts, she strolled down the dirt road by herself in her near-flawless disguise. Strapped to her back was no longer her oversized, thick-padded cross-country backpack. It was now a ragged one that seemed years old with occasional patches sewn in to cover the holes. Accompanying her backpack was a long, slender object with a blanket wrapped around it to hide its shape. 

_All I did was just put on some of this and that, buy this little silver prize, then cry my way out! Just way too easy!_

Still feeling the swelling pride inside her chest, she jumped into air with her hands over her head and cheered loudly in the desolated trail. "Yaaaaay!" 

_Now I'm on my way to freedom! Way to go, Uriko Nonomura!_

She began walking down the trail again, this time glancing around and studying the lush vegetation to both sides of the ten metre-wide, hard-packed road. The climate was definitely warmer, but her disguise felt natural to her and not sweaty. 

"You! Stop!" A voice called out, alarming her. 

Suddenly large, burly men with scarred faces in rough leather battle clothing ran out of the shrubbery and lined up before her, blocking her path. She looked around and found another line of sword-wielding men blocking her escape. A quick sniff of the air revealed all of the men to be zoanthropes with a diversity of beast forms. For now, they remained in their perfectly humanoid forms. Uriko looked at the line in front of her again, waving her fists. 

"Hey! Hey! That's not fair! What kind of cowards need twenty-three men to rob a little girl!?" 

"Schoot! Hush, you little girl!" A man stepped forward from the middle of the line with a wide, almost crazed grin on his face. 

Uriko studied the lanky man with long, rubbery arms dangling to his sides, unarmed. His shoulders and back just slumped over lazily, almost lowering his head to the height of his shoulders. He looked to be in his late-thirties, but he wore a black tee-shirt and red short with a pair of sandals and a pair of black sunglasses. He had a green mohawk with a protruding goatee of the same color. His chin and ears were pierced with a small ring in each. His grin was unusually wide and _ugly_, almost pathetic. 

"Who are you? A punk wannabe? Look man, you're thirty years too old! I'm busy!" 

The man laughed lightly, and looked to his comrades beside him. "Hey you little girl! Don't talk so lowly of me! Me! I'm the famous Hajime Busuzima the Chameleon and you are supposed to kiss me foot! Right man!?" His comrades cheered. "I can't hear you!" The cheer came louder. "See! Don't mess with me and ZLF!" He wagged a long and bony finger. 

"Who the hell are you and what the hell is ZLF? Please get out of my way before I get real mad!" 

"What! You haven't heard of ZLF! We are THE Zoanthrope Liberation Front! We are all zoanthropes and we have far more powers than you humans! And I'm their rightful leader, their Messiah! Right, my man!?" Another cheer as Busuzima nodded to himself arrogantly. 

"I don't care about ZLF, plus I _am_ a zoanthrope! Beside, humans and zoanthropes are just about as equal as each other in both rights and population! You're just so _stupid_!" 

"Then this will be better! Come with me and I will open your eyes! Why be equal to humans when we can enslave them!?" 

"Say, how many followers do you have?" Uriko's question made Busuzima hesitate. 

"Errr… Ninety-five." 

"That's not even close to a single clan! Thanks for wasting my time!" 

"Hold on! If you won't join us, we will be forced to—." The chameleon zoanthrope quickly reassured his firm stance in hope of looking cool to his followers. 

"To do what? Kill me?" Uriko tilted her head, pretending to be quizzed. 

Busuzima began surveying her slender body, causing her to squirm. "That'd be mean to you! Actually, I am going to make you one of my best money-makers! You have the body for it, and I will give you a real home for it! Plus, I can fix that thing on your face for you! Men will enjoy you!" 

"Eeewww! No way!" She recoiled in the disgusting images. "No thanks! I'd rather to stay like this and get nothing!" 

"Hey, hey, but we aren't letting you go!" 

"Are you asking me to fight!?" She cocked an eyebrow at him challengingly. "If so, bring it on! All of you pathetic animals, come and get your ass-kicking!" 

"Hey! It isn't fair for all of us to fight you at once, beside, you're only a little girl!" 

"I'm not a little girl!" 

"I'm going to make you a rare deal. I'll fight you in an all-out battle, no weapons. Just I and you having the simple fun! I win, you'll be mine forever! You win, you leave here free. Final offer, you accept!" The leader was now egotistically throwing air punches. 

_…I think I'll mop the dirt floor and fill that stupid grin of his with dirt…_

* * * * * 

"Kenji, here we are, the junction." Scorch tapped a spot on his map, walking beside Kenji. "About a few minutes from here, we'll be at where the Firavana and Icion roads merge into one single road toward Sol. Not bad for two weeks of traveling, eh?" 

The student answered with cold silence, not even looking at his master. His eyes stared off into distance emotionlessly. The master acknowledged his student's implied desire to be left alone and granted the wish. The last two weeks weren't easy for Scorch to be with Kenji, ever since the incident that left the mole zoanthrope emotionally and psychologically shattered. They traveled, ate, and slept in almost total silence. Only several words had been exchanged. Now, perhaps the hatred and vengeance were the only things that kept him motivated to survive. However, Kenji found neither desire nor motivation to care about anyone else, to talk about his boiling feelings, to even make eye contacts. The only thing he cared for was revenge, but the desire to kill the evil within him grew stronger with everyday… 

It would continue until evil becomes no longer the only victim. 

Kenji noticed that his body had been exceptionally tired and sore, but he didn't care or felt the slightest urge to stop and drop his backpack. He just kept walking in silence, looking down at the path. Scorch looked at his student worriedly, but the boy didn't notice. Suddenly, they heard something. 

"Huh?" Scorch quickly looked at the source of direction and ran toward the source behind the dense forest. Kenji sighed and followed in an unmotivated pace. 

Later, he found his master crouching behind a shrubbery, studying the scene unfurling before him. Kenji sat down beside his concealed master without looking at what Scorch was observing. The demi-dragon gently reached out a hand and turned him to face the scene unfurling before them. With both ninjas concealed perfectly, the bandits didn't see them. 

Outside was another large, hard-packed road just like the one they just walked through. It was the Icion road to Verselium. At one edge of the road, a line of sword wielding, unshaven bandits cheered loudly for two people standing in the middle of the road. Apparently the person they were cheering for shook his fists in air proudly, named Busuzima according to the unruly line's slogans. Apparently, a fight was about to unfurl. Kenji looked at the other fighter and cocked an eyebrow, then shot his master a confused expression. 

The challenger wasn't another man like he expected, but a rather young girl who looked no much older than Kenji. The slender girl, apparently of a poor family, wore a dirty sleeveless top and a skirt of the same gray color, but Kenji could see a contrasting pair of electrifying blue shorts covering her lower body parts. She wore a pair of crude sandals made out of rags. Her dirt-smeared limbs looked slender and delicate, completely unfitted for battles. She had a long, unruly auburn hair with a braid reaching the chest level. Her eyes were large and delicately amber, almost innocent looking in contrast with her mud-streaked face. However, there was one gnarly, almost hideous purplish burn mark covering the left side of her face. It almost looked repulsive, but Kenji found himself staring at the battle for a moment before silently reaching out for his weapon. Scorch held a hand to his chest, preventing him from rescuing the girl. The mole zoanthrope looked at his master wondering the reason to his master's prevention of the rescue of a fragile girl that's about to be taken advantage of. 

The light blue-haired man looked at his student with a warm smile and mouthed only four words for the dark-haired ninja to read, "Appearance can be deceiving." Kenji clenched his teeth and watched on under his teacher's recommendation. From the moment on, he felt an intense urge to rush out and rid of the bandits. He couldn't bear the thought of another case of evil ravishing the innocent. 

_You better have a reason to stop me! She's just too weak!_

* * * * * 

"Come on! Remember, if you lose, you're my toy forever, right, little bitch!" Busuzima shook a fist eagerly, already predicting an easy victory. 

"Sorry, but I'm not a bitch. I'm a _cat_ zoanthrope. Half-beast, if you want to get technical." 

"A cat? That's even better than I thought! You will make a really, really, real—." 

"Shut up and bring it on! I don't have time screwing around with a moron like you!" Uriko shifted into her battle stance, turning her left side to her opponent while the leader continued to wallow in his self-love and his followers' unruly applause. 

"Let's go!" 

"Ladies first!" Without another single word, Uriko charged forward and was within striking range in a second. Reflexively and before her opponent could argue, her right leg rose to deliver two swift thrust kicks, despite their sloppy execution and the fact that she had to flap her arms around to keep her balance. Busuzima had no problem dodging the kicks and took the advantage of the girl's sloppy recoiling by rearing a fist for a punch— 

--and ended up with Uriko's left foot leaving its print on his face. The man recoiled with a pained and surprised grunt as the female zoanthrope recovered from a quick switch kick. 

"First hit!" 

Without waiting for her opponent to recover and utilizing the momentum remaining from her quick switching kick, she spun around and smashed her foot into the man's chest, lifting her other foot off the ground for extra force. The hidden speculators wondered the energetic girl's ability to cover up her sloppy execution of her movement. 

"That's a two-hit combo for me!" She yapped eagerly, waving her fists over her head and let Busuzima recover. 

The man chuckled as he struggled to stand up with his nose bleeding. While the girl was prematurely celebrating, he suddenly lashed out a lanky, rubbery arm—only to be intercepted by the girl so quickly that it wasn't until she twisted his arm painfully when he realized his dire situation. He reared his other hand for a blow, but suddenly he felt a pain he had never endured before, one so acute that his eyes felt as if they were going to pop out. Making a moan of unfathomable pain, he clenched for his groin with both hands and dropped to the ground, almost motionless with his jaws wide open in silent scream. The cheer quieted down, then transformed into humiliating laughter. 

* * * * * 

"…" Kenji watched as the man pathetically went down with such a cheap shot by the girl. 

Scorch let out a like chuckle, but Kenji didn't feel like laughing. Instead, his fists tightened with every seconds of the laughter. The laughter aimed toward a badly humiliated target. The wolfish laughter. The men in black masks. The killer of his villages. Kenji's breath deepened as he tried to fight of the memories, but the rage within him kept boiling with every second of the bandits' laughter. An inhuman growl emanated from his throat… Scorch noticed him and widened his eyes before applying pressure to a certain spot of the back of his head, suppressing Kenji's rage. 

* * * * * 

"See, I've won! Now let me go!" Uriko shook her fists in air at the bandits blocking her way, they were still laughing hysterically, but she didn't feel like joining the hyena laughter. 

"…Not… Yet…" Busuzima's voice struggled weakly, causing the feline zoanthrope to turn around. 

There he was, the man was in the middle of his morphing, transforming his skin into bright green scales with long, oversized snout and small, bulging eyes of a chameleon. The reptilian zoanthrope quickly and suddenly lashed out an unusually long, pink tongue from his mouth, coiling it around the girl's ankle. Uriko let out an interrupted 'whoa' when she was literally yanked off her feet and landed on her face. 

_You son of a bitch! That's my face!_

The feline zoanthrope felt her face hurting and wanted to cover it with a hand, but quickly she saw a shadow overcastting her head. She rolled away quickly and evaded the chameleon's attempt to stomp on her hand. Standing up, she quickly let out a short meow. She didn't plan to use her beast form so quickly, but not when the other zoanthrope's already in his beast form. Plus, a chameleon would have the ability to camouflage and make this battle harder. 

"PREPARE TO FACE WRATH OF URIKO!!!" The girl screeched loudly and began her transformation. 

Her skin morphed into a smooth coat of tan, silky fur as her arms and feet took on the form of cat's paws. Her hair shortened, but didn't disappear like every other zoanthropes. Rather, her auburn hair remained at chin-length with two triangular ears jutting out. Her amber eyes reddened and the circular pupils narrowed into slits. Whiskers erupted from her cheek. A furry tail grew out of the base of her short. Officially in her beast form, Uriko somewhat remained more humanoids than any other zoanthrope's human form. After all, she's only a half-beast for whatever reason. Although her slender limbs remained the same size, the muscles had grown stronger, if not by that much of a degree. She let out an angry meow and held her paws at the chameleon, extending her short claws from their hiding places. The best word describing her form would be a… kitten. 

The chameleon seemed to laugh at her, as if saying, "Your beast form is so pathetic!" She suddenly felt a strong urge to really wipe that grin of her opponent's face, and she followed it. 

"MEOW!!!" _Never underestimate me!_

Suddenly she ran away from Busuzima on all four, at the same time, her body seemed to radiate in a golden energy. Kenji realized that she was channeling a large amount of her inner bestial energy to be unleashed. The feline zoanthrope dashed toward a tree and the chameleon casually walked in her wake, unaware of the punishment about to be handed out by the kitten. Quickly she jumped onto the tree, clung to its side for a split second with all four, and shoved hard with her limbs. She shot up in the air in an arc and came down toward Busuzima while letting out another furious meow with her paws spread out. The chameleon looked up and suddenly found Uriko crouching on his shoulder, both facing the same direction as she balanced herself on the reptile's shoulder easily and mustered energies into her paws. 

* * * * * 

"What is she doing?" Kenji asked and his attempt to dash out was once again halted by his master's hand. 

Scorch let out a chuckle, "Beast Drive. She's going to finish it quickly. Very." 

* * * * * 

The kitten on the reptile's shoulder unleashed her assault, meowing furiously while her paws alternately crashed down and up, scratching the bandit leader's face so quickly and furiously that it took only two seconds for thirty painful blows. Quickly she clamped her knees around the chameleon's oversized head and threw all of her weight back so powerfully that she sent Busuzima spiraling through air. She landed on her hands, then her feet in a crouching stance 

_For the finishing blow! This is it—the Wrath of Uriko!_

She spun around and mustered all of the remaining energy from her bestial counterpart into her right foot, the air around her began to move upon the tremendous amount of energy stored within her foot. Her body reverted back to her human form. She had practiced this certain combo over and over again, but this was the very first time that she felt the energy seemed to be far more intense that before. She had never felt such powers within herself, not even when Kawa taught her to manifest her own inner energy. However, it wouldn't matter as she watched Busuzima falling. She aimed carefully, and sprung from her crouch in a flying kick with her supercharged foot forward for a tremendous kick. The energy was so powerful that it was clearly visible and formed a massive arrow around her foot. 

**_"SUPER-ULTRA-AMAZINGLY-HEAVENLY-THUNDEROUS-EARTH-SHATTERING DRAGON KICK!"_**

Her foot crashed into the hapless man's vulnerable abdomen. 

* * * * * 

Kenji could only see a flash of light, and a thunderous roar through the air as a blast of wind blew throughout the place, almost revealing the ninjas' hiding place. 

It was so loud that a puddle beside him splattered all over the place. 

The energy was so strong that some of the nearby leaves were simply plucked away. 

Several of the leaves closest to the source were incinerated. 

And yet, the sudden gush wasn't as hot as he expected. 

Rather, it felt _frigid_. 

When the flash diminished and he lowered his defensive hands, the girl was already standing, panting breathlessly with a hand over her eyes as if tracing a distant object. Indeed she was tracing Busuzima's body flying through the air into the distance, his body only a black dot and his scream unheard. The ground where she stood on was slightly burnt. 

_…Scorch is right…_

* * * * * 

After the black dot that was Busuzima disappeared, she let out a sigh of relief and breathlessly turned to the line of dumbstruck bandits. 

"Well, c-can I-I go now?" 

The zoanthrope bandits looked at each other for a moment, as if unsure about what to do after the fragile girl just kicked their leader out literally. 

"Sh-shoo, you b-bastards are in my way! L-let me get my stuff or else!" She warned them again. 

However, smirks began to appear on their faces. "Sorry girl, but you just exhausted all of your beast energy. No more beastizing for you." 

"And we don't have to worry if you are going to kick our asses or not." 

"You're just too tired!" 

* * * * * 

_Oh no…_ Kenji thought grimly. 

He didn't notice Scorch was smiling. 

* * * * * 

"Let's go! Even if she can fight, she can't fight all of us at once!" 

"The first one to get her gets her virginity!" 

All the bandits quickly dropped their weapons and began transforming. Fingers became claws as primal instincts took over. The variety of zoanthropes ranged from feline to canine to even rodents, and they all were drooling for her. 

"S-stop it!" She stammered and her trembling knees froze. 

The bandits laughed greedily and all lunged for her with claws outstretched lustfully. She managed to jump back, but the other zoanthropes quickly followed. Just as she thought she was about to be caught, suddenly a golden blur came between her and the line of zoanthropes, smashing fists into several of the attackers' face and causing the entire line to freeze. A crimson tattered scarf dangled from his neck behind him. Although Uriko didn't see her new guardian's face, she could sense a tremendous amount of angst within the boy of her age. 

"…For trying to get her, you will pay with your body parts…" Kenji said coldly to the bandits.   
-----   
**Author's Notes:** Okay, here we are! The very first sign of my all-time favorite couple! >_> Anyway, this scene isn't over yet. The very next chapter, titled "Freezing Inferno", will follow up! Just wait and see what Kenji's going to do with those poor bastards! =P Don't worry about boozeman, he'll be back for more. >=D Enjoy! 


	11. Freezing Inferno

**Okay, here we go. Perhaps it isn't of the caliber of what you expected from Kenji, but I'm trying to save the best stuff for later. >_> You want see more of Kenji kicking so much asses with such a badass attitude that you just feel you aren't worth witnessing even a nanosecond? Just wait and keep reading. >=D Don't forget to R&R or I'll... er... um... I'll make your life worse than being forced to watch the rerun of the unmentionable amateur pornography involving a certain chameleon zoanthrope and his homosexual foxy partner. Thanks to Tiger5913 for chaining me to my laptop and threaten to crack open my skull with a baseball bat unless I finish this... x.x Just kidding! No need to be real! n_n;;**

**Chapter 10: Freezing Inferno**

Kenji glared acidly at the crowd, his eyes cold with fatal brutality, yet burning with passionate rage. He breathed in and out deeply to aid oxygen into his brain and soothe the rage within him. The compulsion to tear the defiling crowd of faceless criminals apart in bloodshed was strong with him, but he kept reminding himself of Scorch's word. He exhaled, clenching his teeth to point of pain. 

_Killing is avoidable without sacrifice, even when it is necessary to kill… Even scums shouldn't be killed. No one deserved to be killed with out a truly justifiable reason. True justice never kills…_

He tensed and relaxed the muscles within his murderous hands. The crowd stared murderously at the boy who was merely the girl's age and looked no stronger, physical-wise. They hesitated, some of them still completing their bestial genetically induced transformation. Kenji dared to not move a single muscle, afraid that he would just explode. Yet, the desire to grind the filthy wastes continued conflicting. 

"Kenji. Don't kill." Scorch had already come out of his hiding place, propping himself against a tree with his arms folded across his chest. The blue-haired man avoided eye contact and was studying a bird innocently chirping on a branch above him. Kenji didn't even look at his master's direction. "Just meditate and do it." He said solemnly. 

The mole zoanthrope didn't reply verbally, just with a slight, almost undetectable nod. His fingers curled into claws, but he had no intention of using his natural metamorphic ability. The crowd was simply far too pathetic and sloppy to be worthy of even a single blade. 

_I could take them all barehanded… They are just scums… Those kind that deserve to die. Yet they don't deserve to die… To kill or to not kill…_

"Yeah! Go and kick their asses!" The girl yelled enthusiastically behind him, ignored by the younger ninja. "Show them what you're made of, my savior!" 

The young Dragon Ninja slowly shifted into a stiff standing stance with his hands clasped together, crisscrossing his fingers except for two jutting out of his right hand. Holding the two-handed gesture close to his face, he closed his eyes and let him self sink into a meditative state. His mind filtered out the background sounds, focusing only on the sounds emanating from the bodies of the twenty-two remaining beast-men. His nose could smell only the faint, distinct scents of the bandits, his master, and the girl behind him. Submerging himself into a world of pure grey, he visualized his rage. The grey void around him fell apart seam by seam, like an invisible tearing a fabric thread by thread, to reveal an inferno raging all around him, burning and screaming in anguish. He visualized all the deadly flames dying down. A torrent of pure, glowing water rained down around him, extinguishing all of the inferno and flooded the void… And the water froze around him, revealing an icy wasteland. One that was cold and bitter, yet it felt unbelievably serene and quiet… 

_Twenty-two._

"Watch out!" The girl behind him called out, and the icy wasteland slowly faded away, but its soothing and freezing effect remained psychologically. 

He opened his eyes and saw claws crashing down toward his forehead, merely inches from cracking his skull fatally. His amber eyes only watched in total silence and nonchalance achieved only by meditation. Knowing the limit of his meditative state well, he had to act quickly. The claws might be crashing down at an incredible speed that few could even see it, but Kenji could see them coming down at him with simply murderous intention. 

* * * * * 

Uriko reared her body, readying for a flying kick when she was horrified that the boy didn't move even with her warning and claws obviously ripping to get his head off. Within a fraction of a second, she realized that she was far too slow to even try to save the boy from certain death. Although the boy was wearing a pair of reddish, metallic armguards covering up to his elbows, Uriko didn't think he would be able to block the attack in time. 

_Oh no! He's done for!_

She expected a gory scene of cracked skull—and the attacker's claws struck the ground with a solid sound. No blood was drawn from either side. Kenji was standing coldly beside the attacker's outstretched arm. Uriko didn't even see him moving, but he had evidently moved so quickly that her eyes didn't even register him! She was surprised by the boy's speed, considering his young age. It was as if the boy had been under intense training for most of his life, but that wasn't the case. Unknowingly to the two teenagers, Kenji's speed came from his suppressed rage. 

_He… He's fast._

Kenji coldly stomped a foot into the attacker's hand and pinned it against the ground painfully. Without hesitating, his other foot lashed out and slammed into the enemy's elbow. The fox zoanthrope let out a scream of agony, his elbow bent backward at an impossible angle with a loud cracking sound. He screamed and clenched his broken elbow with his other hand, rolling on the ground pathetically. Two clawed zoanthropes charged and swiped together, but they struck only thin air. The duo looked confused for a moment and looked around for the sign of the ninja. He was standing in the middle of the crowd in total silence, his eyes devoid of motivation to fight, yet he struck out quickly and with surgical precision. His arms shot to his sides and each hit an Adam's apple. Two went down. 

The nearest ten attacked simultaneously, charging foolishly at the boy. 

_Is he going to be okay?_

A series of powerful sounds of flesh colliding with flesh and the ten attackers collapsed unconscious with imprints in their chests. Kenji didn't seem to move, just standing in the breeze, his crimson scarf fluttering in air horizontally. His hands were half-curled in neutral position and his uncovered shoulders stiffened, the shoulder muscles bulging out very lightly along with his triceps. 

He clenched his fists tightly. 

He struck out like a cobra. 

* * * * * 

The last standing bandit just looked at Kenji fearfully, all of his other comrades fallen to the boy's non-lethal painful wrath. Kenji landed from his most recent onslaught, buckling his knees in a crouch. His ninja gi suffered only very minor blood splatter that came from either broken teeth or broken bones jutting out of skin. Around him, zoanthropes were either unconscious or screaming in their own overwhelming world of hurt. The meditative state was beginning to wear out, and killing intents were struggling to free themselves from within… 

The bandit turned and ran away in fear. 

_I cannot let him run away. I cannot let the kind of him to injure any more of people's lives…_

Kenji's coiled legs snapped forward into a sprint so fast that he was merely a streak literally—and stopped just before the escaping zoanthrope with his left hand raised to his face, holding up two fingers. His eyes were closed His other palm was open and poised to strike. Before the zoanthrope could even realize his dire situation, Kenji charged into his enemy and rammed his palm into the abdomen without even moving his arm muscles. The would-be escapee just ran into the awaiting hand and suffered a painful contact, literally lifting his feet of the ground. The ninja opened his eyes in the middle of his stride and shoved forward hard, snapping his elbow with powerful contractions of his muscles. 

"Ugh!" The man faced a pain he never faced before with blood beginning to fly out of his mouth from his throat. Finally the man flew backward, skimming across the ground like a rock skimming the surface of water. Light sounds of flesh hitting ground punctuated every contact between the ground and the man's back. Kenji stopped and slowly regained his stiff standing stance while the man he recently knocked away skidded to a stop among his comrades. 

Uriko felt a joy within her chest when the boy defeated the last of the bandits as if they were just dummies standing around with a large sign on them, begging him to break them. She threw her hands over her hand and jumped up. "YAAAAAAAY!!!" 

The young teenaged girl quickly took a few steps toward the boy with a reflexive appreciative action in mind, when a voice made her stop and turn around. The fox zoanthrope whose elbow Kenji broke to initiate the one-sided battle was now charging toward her with his good claws raised and his jaws open with saliva coming out of it. The fox's eyes were intended to avenge his fallen comrades, by attempting to kill the one protected by the ninja. The girl was quick, but she was caught off guard by the fox. 

Kenji saw the fox coming, and he was already over thirty metres away from Uriko's location. 

Suddenly, a sharp blow attacked his chest. The scene—an attacker about to kill the person who he was trying to protect—was sorely familiar. It felt as if a wound had been pried open brutally within his heart, shattering his meditative state of mind. The girl standing there, unable to move out of the way in time. The fox about to strike fatally with a hysterical, drooling grin exposing his sharp fangs. All felt new and strange, yet one familiar feeling screamed in his face. 

_S—she's going to get killed—_

Something re-ignited inside him. 

The fox continued charging lustfully. There was nothing now stopping him from getting the feline zoanthrope. Nothing—until one tenth of a second later when Kenji suddenly slid on his heels between Uriko and the fox with complete intention to protect and to kill. His right hand had already pulled out a sword hilt concealed within his garments, the broken sword's remaining blade gleaming and erupting into a long blade of liquid fire. The fox and the boy's enraged eyes locked for one moment, neither showing intention of backing away. 

Kenji abruptly took a step forward and began executing a diagonal upward slash with his raging weapon, leaving a fiery, orange-red wake— 

The fox zoanthrope lunged the destroyer of his elbow, bring his claws downward savagely upon the ninja's windpipe— 

—A streak of light blue ran between both of them as the two opposing onslaughts were about to clash and stayed there. 

Kenji felt his flaming sword being blocked and stared with disbelief into Scorch's face. 

The master ninja placed himself between the two conflicting sides with his own inhuman speed, and that was it. His right hand was outstretched and curled into a fist with two fingers protruding, pressing against the fox zoanthrope's soft spot below the jaw. The fox zoanthrope's paws froze in the air, convulsing lightly as if refusing to give up. His left arm was bent at a right angle and held with his entire arm parallel to the ground, stopping Kenji's fiery blade of contained inferno easily. The blade raged on against Scorch's arm, but he showed no signs of pain. The fire didn't even penetrate the long sleeve of the teacher's garment. It was as if the liquid fire was simply a wooden sword painted brightly yellow to the demi-dragon. 

"Kenji, sorry that I had to do it. There was too many killing intention within you." He closed his right hand's protruding fingers and let the fox zoanthrope collapsing onto the ground in his forced, dreamless sleep. 

Kenji clenched his teeth tightly, but said nothing and backed down, dispelling his burning weapon. He wanted to ask why would Scorch help a killer? He wanted to know why it is important to keep everybody alive, even if they commit the unthinkable sins? He bowed and shook his head in disappointment and to dispel his mind of his question. That was when he felt two slender arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind and a soft, warm body—and was thrown off balance when the thankful girl hugged him tightly. 

* * * * * 

"Wow! Thanks a million times for saving me!" Smiling widely, Uriko bowed graciously before her saviors, although it was really Kenji who saved her single-handedly while Scorch stood around, uninvolved in the combat. The kitten zoanthrope felt comfortable and secure around the two perfect strangers. So she felt no need to use a false name among them. She looked up at them with her innocent, chocolate eyes, brushing off stray strands of hair with a delicate hand. "I'm Uriko Nonomura! It's been very pleasant to meet you!" 

"Please to meet you, too. My name is Scorch Prometheus." Scorch held his right hand against his left shoulder and bowed politely. "This is—." He looked at the dark-haired boy staring off into distance in silence. "This is my friend, Kenji Ohgami." 

"Ah! Kenji! Thank you for saving me!" 

The boy didn't seem to hear the half-beast zoanthrope's appreciation. 

"Hello? Are you okay?" 

Scorch was aware of his student's withdrew state of mind and tried to explain it to the energetic girl. "Excuse him, he just underwent…" He groped for a word with a grim frown on his face, then forced a smile on his face. "…a thoroughly traumatic experience. I would rather to not mention it right now." 

The girl didn't seem to be aware of the true grief undergoing between the two, just nodding in sympathy. "Oh, I'm sorry to hear about it. I hope you guys will get over your experience." 

"It's okay." 

"Oh, it's getting dark, I think I better get going!" Uriko looked apologetically and quickly jogged for her bag sitting alone, fortunately untouched. 

Scorch and Kenji retrieved their own backpacks. She looked back at them as she slipped her arms through the secure shoulder straps, wondering if she would meet with them again, especially the depressed boy. Her amber eyes showed a glint of concern as she trekked off on the road once more. Scorch and Kenji were standing not too far, and she automatically went to them. One reason was her curiosity. The other reason involved her secret identity as a fugitive princess. 

_Hey… Perhaps I can follow them around a bit, as long as they aren't heading for Icion._

"Where are you heading for now?" The girl inquired, shifting her backpack slightly. 

The blue-haired man replied, "Sol, Verselium." 

_Sol? Not bad! I definitely can have some fun time over there!_

"Whoa! I'm going there too! Can I tag along with you guys!?" Uriko's eyes lit up and held a hand in air, as if trying to look like a fine companion. 

Scorch smiled. "Certainly, we would love some company. Let's go." 

"YES!" She jumped into air happily. 

She glanced cheerfully at Kenji for his reaction, but she had a very brief eye contact before he looked away grimly. Within the ephemeral locking of eyes, she suddenly saw his emotions- 

_Sorrow… Despair… Anger… What had that poor boy gone through? This isn't normal stuff!_

Scorch and Kenji were already moving up the trail when Uriko snapped herself out of contemplation and ran after them. 

"H-hey! Wait for meeee!" 

* * * * * 

After an hour of traveling in a group, they arrived at a small inn completed with a fully consumable diner. It was an ancient-styled one, made of solely wooded planks with a jaded brick roof styled in an Asian manner. The windows were nothing more than oil paper sheets attached to a frame. Not exactly a rich one, but then again, they didn't expect anything else in the not-so-frequently traversed route. The sun was setting behind the mountainous horizon behind the inn, and the doorway was open. Scorch, Kenji, and Uriko all walked into the empty diner and seated themselves around a square wooden table with a simple bench without back support on each side. 

_Jeez, this place stinks…_

As they removed their backpacks and leaned them against their respective benches, a skinny man dressed in rough attire with a towel draped over a shoulder entered and wiped their table with his towel, welcoming them with a crooked, stained smell. Uriko could smell the sheer number of times of the man smoking crude tobacco daily, but she pretended to not show. Scorch and Kenji weren't bothered by the smell, either. The man set down three ceramic teacups and filled them to the brim with hot tea from a steaming kettle he brought along with him. Afterward he put down three pairs of chopsticks and some napkins. 

"Hallo here! What you like for dinner?" The tobacco-stained man nodded with an exaggerated smell to reveal more of his rotten teeth, rubbing his bony hands together and generating miniature cracking sounds that seemed too loud in the ears of the sensitive zoanthropes. 

"May I ask what kind of foot do you have in here?" Scorch asked gently, removing his gloves and put them aside. 

"Oh! Mister, we have home-styled, traditional Chinese food here! I'm Leung." The man nodded, his upper body mimicking the action of his head. 

"Okay, Leung, I would like to have sliced beef with broccoli and garlic, along with three bowls of steamed rice. One for each of us." The man held up three fingers for Leung, then looked at Uriko. "Miss Nonomura, what would you like to have?" 

"Oh! I'll have a fried fish with tomato! Hey man, you got carbonated drinks?" 

"Yes miss! No problem! We got Coke!" 

"Coke? Er, okay! That'll be fine! One glass with ice, please! And Scorch, just call me Uriko!" She sneaked a look at the silent Kenji, still looking distant and as if contemplating. The boy's body language seemed to shy away. "Hey Kenji, you want something to eat?" 

"…" was the mole zoanthrope's reply. 

Uriko tilted her head curiously and waved a hand in front of the boy's eyes to catch his seemingly non-existent attention. "Huh? Come on, at least eat something! Hello? Earth to Kenji!" 

The boy slowly reared his head from Uriko's swatting hand and his eyes locked with the second time with her eyes. This time, his eyes were grateful for something that Uriko couldn't tell. For first time, Kenji spoke directly to her in a voice that could break away anytime soon and broke the eye contact. Even she could detect the sorrow that Kenji was fighting back in his cold, absent voice. 

"It doesn't really matter for me… Miss Nonomura…" 

"Finally you speak something at all! At least pick something that you like! Don't worry, I'll pay for it. After all, it's you who saved my life today! Oh and just call me Uriko!" She beamed, waving her hands beside her faces and flashing a casual victory hand sign. Leung was politely dismissed and he returned to the kitchen. 

Kenji peeked at the energetic girl, and something made him want to cry… Something inside him wanted him to stop hiding his emotions… 

_She's so full of energy… I wish I can be like her, but…_

"…Uriko." 

He buried his face in his hands and began sobbing. 

_Why am I still crying? I shouldn't be crying just because of that bastard, just because of something that I envy! I must retain my composure and my strength…_

"…Kenji? Are you sure you're okay?" Uriko was obviously surprised, reaching out a hand to comfort him, but the boy swatted her hand away and returned to his impassive self. 

"Nothing. It was just something in my eyes." 

"Kenji—." 

"I'm fine. Leave me alone, please." That was it. 

Scorch was cocking an eyebrow, studying something on one of Uriko's hands. "Uriko, would you please hold out your left hand and face the palm downward?" 

"What?" 

"Just do it. Please." 

She did so and looked on the back of her left palm. Something caught her eyes and she wondered how could she have missed it. She held it closer for inspection, holding her left wrist with her right hand. Scorch waited, holding his knuckle close to his mouth in contemplation. Kenji showed no interest and sipped his cup of hot tea while the younger youth exclaimed in silence. 

_…What is it? It wasn't there before!_

On the back of her left hand was a black glyph. Composed of clear, fine lines, four concentric circles marked most of the area of the back of her palm. Between each line were filled with serpentine runes that seemed familiar, yet she couldn't recognize. In side the very center of the circle was one single character, one that she recognized as a very simple character of a dead language. It was the number 'nine' in the nameless language. Puzzled by the appearance of the glyph, she rubbed it with a thumb. The black ink didn't smear off. She tried damping it with drops of hot tea, but it still refused to come off, as if it was a tattoo. She looked up at the azure-haired Dragon Ninja for answers. 

"Kenji. Would you please show the back of your left hand?" Scorch asked. 

"Why? I don't have this mark." 

"You sure?" A tired sigh. 

The student nodded grimly and put down his cup, unfastening his left armguard and gloves to reveal that his left hand was bandaged heavily to the middle of the forearm. Setting his armguard down, he began unraveling the bandage. Layers of the bandages came off one by one, coiling around Kenji's right hand. Uriko looked at the adult confusingly. The last few layers of the bandages were slightly pink with dried blood and pus. 

"Oh. He burned his left arm in an lavaboarding incident. While I was bandaging it, I noticed it. It is definitely not an ordinary tattoo—if it is, it would have burned right off easily." 

Stripping his burnt arm nude, he held it up to reveal the black glyph identical to Uriko's on the back of his left hand. He didn't even realize it, "See?" 

"Kenji, look for yourself." 

"Hallo—my dear diners! Food's ready!" Leung waltzed in carrying four dishes of food and three bowls of rice using only his two arms, along with Uriko's one glass of carbonated drink. 

* * * * * 

"Nice dinner?" Scorch smiled. 

"Hell yeah! I haven't had such a nice dinner for sometime!" She picked off the last bit of the fish and put down her empty bowl. She shot another look at Kenji. 

_Why do I keep looking at him!?_

He was nibbling at a piece of green vegetable, his eyes as distant as ever. His bowl was still over four-fifth full. Scorch looked at Kenji with worriedly, then resumed eating his half-full bowl with ever-politeness. Uriko looked at the two, putting her chin on her hands and her elbows on the table. 

_Sigh… What's happened to those two? Is Kenji okay? He seemed really depressed…_

"Uriko?" Kenji asked suddenly without looking at her. 

"Yes?" Her heart almost jumped out of her chest, not expecting him to actually speak to her again within the hour. 

"You can take off your fake burn mark now." 

"My burn mark—?" She realized that her large, false burn mark on her face was still on. 

Scorch coughed lightly, "you've got fish bones poking out of your burn mark as if it doesn't bother you at all." 

_Ah well… What is there to hide?_

"Er, okay." She reached up and felt for the outline of the plastic burn mark. Finding one edge, she used her fingernails to lift it just enough to slip a finger in and removed her false scar with one smooth tank. "Ow!" She rubbed her stinging left cheek. "Removing this thing is just like removing duct tape off your face!" 

She realized that her two comrades were staring at her, as if demanding an answer. "Er-eh, I put this thing on s-so that those damn bandits wouldn't pick on me. As you can see, not exactly effective." 

"I see." Scorch nodded. "You want to keep it?" 

She looked at the purple piece of tattered plastic in her hand, a bead of sweat dropping from a temple. 

_Geez… There are THAT many fish bones sticking out of it and I didn't even notice it!? Sometimes I think I did the 'poor and hungry girl' thing **TOO** well…_

* * * * * 

Although he saw through the newly met girl's disguise, he didn't expect to feel anything when the girl removed her make-up. However, he did feel a bit of surprise when the mark was removed to reveal a smooth, almost unblemished face. Her large chocolate eyes seemed to fit with her face much better now, with a small and smooth nose. Kenji's eyes wandered back to the cup after the quick glance of her true face. A word came to his mind, but he couldn't exactly describe it. He groped for it… 

And continued nibbling uninterestingly at his meal. 

"I hope you have another attire with you." Kenji commented randomly at her sleeveless top revealing her slender, delicate arms and shoulders. Her chest stood out only a few inches and that was very little compared to other female he seen. Although he wasn't interested in it, something inside him told him it would be better for the girl to change into another attire in the future of the trip. 

"Hey, of course! Can't travel across the world without spare clothing. Why asking me?" Uriko tilted her head curiously again. 

"Well…" He searched for solace within himself. "I would say that your clothing perhaps might attract needless attention, since you'll be seen as a poor girl to be taken advantage of, just like those…" He paused to purge the images of his home. "…bastards back there…" 

"Well, being poor is my disguise. Don't worry, I'll get changed tomorrow if you wanna." 

"Leung?" Scorched gestured for the waiter. "Can we rent a room upstair?" 

"Certainly! It's 600 dollars each night, per room, in common currency!" 

"**WHAAAA!?**" Uriko almost choked finishing her glass. "That's SIXTY times too expensive!" 

"Sorry, miss! But as you can see, this place isn't very often traveled, so we have no choice but to bump up the price!" 

"Bah, but six hundred dollar for a night? I'd rather to go and find another inn!" 

"You can't! The nearest inn is over three hours away—and the sun's already down!" 

"Relax, Uriko, Kenji. How much do you have now?" The blue-haired examined his porch of currency. 

Uriko looked inside her moneybag. Just gold and silver pieces from that kid Dragonslayer… Mmm, I can use them, but I could raise suspicion… Better not use those. "Eh, I have only two hundred or so." 

Kenji: "Five hundred." 

"I have one thousand or so in common currency. All the rest are in Firavana." 

"What now?" 

"Unless you don't mind traveling broke, we'll have to share a room for the night. Don't worry, I'll just sleep on the roof." 

_Sharing a room? Already? Cool._

"Sure, why not!?" She raised her glass of carbonated drink in toast, then moved it to her lips. 

"My dear diners! The bill for your food is fifty-six dollars!" Leung's words made Uriko choked on her drink for the second time in one minute. "Wait! I forgot to include the drinks!" 

* * * * * 

"That's our six hundred dollars a night room!?" Uriko sprung into the dim room. 

Kenji blinked solemnly, walking into the small room with two single beds, a table, and that was it. Uriko ran to a bed and tossed her backpack aside, sitting on the bed cross-legged while removing her ragged sandals. Kenji silently put his backpack beside the other bed and sat down on it. Scorch put down his in a corner of the room and walked to a window, opening it fully. 

"Better than nothing. We'll leave at the break of dawn. There's a village several hours away that we can really take some time off." He sat on the windowsill and placed a foot on it., looking outside the night sky. 

"Good night." Kenji remained sitting upright with his legs crossed and closed his eyes, looking as if he was really meditating rather than sleeping. 

Uriko looked at the boy curiously and moved to the edge of her bed. "Kenji? You already asleep?" She stretched out a hand over the gap between the two beds and waved it before his face, catching herself when she almost fell leaning toward Kenji. 

Scorch let out a light, almost inaudible cough. 

"Hey, can you tell me what happened?" She asked the one million-dollar question. 

Scorch looked at her, his eyes asking her if she was certain she wants to hear their story. He looked out the window again with a depressing sigh, attracted to the silver stars scattered throughout to night sky. He hesitated for what seemed like an eternity as the girl waited like an obedient student waiting for her teacher's reply. When he looked at her again, he had to wipe tears off his eyes with the back of his hand. 

"I have known and taught Kenji for eleven years, almost twelve years now. He… He was one of my only two current students. My other student… Kio, he and Kenji were inseparable. The two were the best of the best friends." He let out a forced smile and looked out at the night. "We used to have lots of fun times together. In matter of fact, my fondest memories in one hundred years were with them." 

"W-wait, you're over one hundred years old?" Uriko cocked her head. "I thought you were only twenty eight or so." 

He didn't look at her. "I'm a demi-dragon. A Fire one. I live next to a volcano. Just several hours away from where I live was Zill. Zill was Kenji and Kio's home for their entire lives, with all their families and friend…" 

A pause. Uriko let the demi-dragon gather himself together. 

"…Fifteen days ago. They came." 

Another pause. 

"They were invaders, but they weren't the usual invaders. Usually, we would have a group of bandits attacking the village and we always win defending our village. Back then, those where low-tech bandits… However, the invaders were far superior in weaponry technology, so superior that it couldn't have been from Firavana. They were from Tech… 

"They just came and took the village. They just came and killed the village… without a reason." 

"And you couldn't save them?" 

"Actually, I never had a chance. I encountered some of them when I was trying to get there from my place. Took me a while, but I was able to defeat them… But… I was still… too late." 

Scorch sorrowfully looked at Kenji. 

"I found him crying, over Kio's dead body. I found him in the middle of a sea of dead bodies. He was the sole survivor of his village, and he—he killed all of the invaders. I don't know where he got the power to fight back against forty of them, but he just ripped through their bodies—literally. T-there was s-so much blood. So much death…" The man's hands were trembling lightly. "…Still, one of the invaders was still alive. He was about to kill Kenji… I-I had no choice but to…" 

A sigh. 

"I hope you understand. Please. Do me a favour." 

Uriko was holding a hand over her mouth, her eyes gleaming in disbelief. She had heard of stories of villages being destroyed to the point where of no survivor, but never a true incident that a village was found demolished without a single survivor. She'd dismissed the stories as something to create a depressing mood in a novel, but never thought she'd actually meet the sole survivor of a village—the same person who avenged his village by killing all of the killers. Yet, Kenji didn't seem to have enough of revenge. 

"Su… Sure." 

"Whatever you do with him, just don't mention… the incident. I will appreciate it very much if you can help him." 

"Oh…" She paused for a moment. "No problem! I'll do whatever I can do to help him out. Beside, he's saved my life before!" 

"That's all. We have a long journey ahead of us." Scorch smiled weakly. "Good night." 

With that, the master ninja pushed himself out of the window and agilely leaped onto the roof with utter silence. 

Uriko looked around her setting and quickly slipped herself under the blanket of her bet, fluffing her pillow before setting her head down. She was about to reach out to turn off the table lamp and mutter a good night to the meditative boy when she felt something in the bed with her. It was something soft and furry between her knees. 

It was alive. 

"MEEEEEEEEP!!!!" 

Kenji slowly opened his eyes tiresomely at the girl's surprised scream. Sighing, he looked at her bed. The bed had its blankets thrown away to reveal a small, furry rat curled up into a trembling ball, clearly frightened by the new tenants of its territory. He leered at the rodent with a silent, annoyed look before the small creature scurried off the bed and disappeared into a shadowy corner. Drowsily, he returned his eyes to directly before him to find Scorch's wondering face hanging upside down from the window. The feline zoanthrope was nowhere within his vision. 

"…Please return to your sleeping place." He muttered, closing his eyes. 

Uriko was right behind him and clenching to his slender body tightly. It was a wonder that the girl managed to slip behind the boy when he had his back leaned against the headrest. Flustered by her impulsive action, she said nothing and returned to her bed. She took extra precaution to make sure of the lack of any other tenants, her hands caressing the entire surface of the mattress. The red-faced girl looked at the window to find the master still cocking his upside-down head before returning to the moonlit roof that was his bed. 

_Oh, that reminds me! I need a shower and get changed into my PJ!_

The girl quickly shuffled over to her backpack, kneeled down beside it, and dug inside. Going through several attires later, she pulled out her desired sleeping pajamas and a plastic bag containing travel-sized bottles of shampoo, soap, body moisturizers, lotions, tooth brushes, tooth pastes, and some various cosmetic appliances designed for disguises. With a towel draped over a shoulder she shuffled past a silent Kenji, looking at him as if he was going to awaken any moment. Uriko turned the doorknob and tried to open the door as quiet as she could ever possibly achieve with the creaking, improperly maintained hinges. She closed the door behind her. 

_Eh, let's hope the bathroom door has a working lock…_

To her relief, it had a deadbolt lock. Flicking on the light, she put down her clean pajama and accessories beside the sink and undressed herself. Naked, she made a quick inspection of her delicate skin for any signs of unsightly bruises, cuts, or blemishes. One of her hands testing the firmness of her muscles in various parts of her body, the slender girl moved into the shower and reached for the taps. 

**"YYYYYYOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!!!"**

Kenji opened his eyes in annoyance and wondered why did the loud girl came along. Exactly above her, Scorch lied on his back with his head resting on a forearm, rubbing the bridge of his nose. From the girl's screaming and his sixth sense, the demi-dragon drew a conclusion in his mind. He whispered to himself, spiritually looking up at the moon shining in the middle of the formation of naked stars of the constellation of Draco. 

"…Hot water's out…" 

Feeling better relaxed, he slipped his other hand under his head and stared up at the moon. From the point on, he could hear literally everything within range. Leung was conversing informally with his wife in his own room, fidgeting with a pen. A sink several rooms away from the trio's current location needed to be fixed. Three rats were fighting over a crumb of bread in the basement of the building. Termites ate away the rotten wooden supports slowly. A small owl was hunting several hundred metres away. A rat scurried quickly into its hole, exactly nine hundred and fifty-six metres from the entrance of the in. He heard everything and nothing, staring only at the sky motionlessly. A small breeze carried a silent message to his ears. Scorch blinked, imagining the possibilities if the message was to be true. 

_…I know. Even though I accepted this fate a long time ago, I still couldn't prepare myself… Free will is such an unpredictable thing._

The thought was replied with another breeze whispering soundlessly in his ears. 

_Why?_

This time, the reply mixed with a door slamming open. 

_…I see. However, Kenji is in a very fragile state of mind right now. Are you sure you want to do it?_

A breeze did not come, but Scorch heard the message from his deity nonetheless. 

_I don't know. It could be too much for him, even with weeks, or even months, to forget. It's just…_

The feline zoanthrope made a comment to the mole zoanthrope, which Scorch didn't pay attention to. 

_…to risky for me to bear it. Even I don't think I would be able to withstand it. I know. I only wish I don't have to do it._

There was no reply. 

_I wish you can be here…_

Uriko just threw herself back in her bed and flicked the lamp off. Scorch slowly held out his left hand at the moon as if to grasp it. He closed his fingers in the totally immobile air and moved the fist to his face. Unraveling the fingers to reveal the dark content of his palm, he held a bamboo leaf by its stem. He didn't need to look around to notice there was no bamboo plants around the lonely building. The single bamboo leaf stood out in the pale moonlight like a blade in silence. 

It all was clear to him. 

_…I will do it… Forgive me…_

Serenely, the demi-dragon reverted his spiritual stare to the moon. 

-----   
**Author's Note: ^___^ Wheee, that ought to sum up the meeting of Keniko! Time to work on other couples! You know? Those people halfway across the world going to the same place? Yeah, those. Yeah, that lonely rabbit, that cowardly wolf, that retired assassin, that defeated mercenary, that embarrassed student, and that suicidal ninja. Just wait for Chapter 11: "Empty Solace"! Enjoy and drop some nice reviews for me!**


	12. Empty Solace

**Sorry about the late chapter! X.x Oh boy, sometimes real life can be quite a drag... nn;; Enjoy the chapter! A yell out to Tiger5913 for continually prodding me with a high-watt cattle prod!**

**Chapter 11: Empty Solace**

Shannon shifted the center of gravity of her backpack slightly to favour her slender frame. Running a hand through her cool, fresh hair, she strolled down the forest with a small elastic hairband between her lips while her hands lined her dark chestnut hair into a short ponytail. Dropping her hairband into a hand, she shrugged her shoulders once again to adjust the weight. After about two good weeks of traveling through the cool mountain by herself, she felt ready for anything. Although she did lack the norm physical strength of a true backpacker, she took her time picking a gentle, yet not easy enough for an inexperienced rock climber can easily scale, course up the mountain. Climbing was hard, but it did play a steady role in improving her endurance. Everything else was just easy downhill literally. The border to Verselium now stood only another two weeks before her, including the occasional stops at interesting villages. She snapped the hairband around her ponytail and let go, letting the hairs in front of her ears hanging unrestricted. 

She assured herself of her hairstyle with a sideways stroke through hair at her right. Although she tried to relax as much as she could, she was nowhere near the social queen named Emu thanks to her habit of striking down every single mistake her date made. Even though her chest, waist, and hips were fairly slender, many deemed her as cute for her petite frame at only five-foot six. Hence all the crappy dates from three types of male figures: Too much acting, too much show off, or simply too boring. Sometimes all the three poor qualities where blended into one, like the infamous date with Chris Doman which ended with his head dunked in a bowl of mushroom cream soup while being overconfident around a fourteen years old Shannon. He finished the roast beef with lemon shrimps and special sauce of sun-dried tomatoes alone while being stared at by many pairs of eyes. Too many times, she heard boys telling her that she looked three years younger than she is. 

_Try again._

The falcon zoanthrope stretched out her arms comfortably and studied the lush vegetation hovering overhead. Watching birds flying overhead, she sometimes wondered if she could shoot one of them down through a blanket of emerald leaves. She decided it would be sinful and a waste of time trying to shoot down one of the innocent, harmless birds and continued on her way for the nearest village. 

_Hmmm… I could use a nice bath right now. I hope they have a nice, open bath area. I wonder how's my bow now?_

A hand reached back and removed the brown, recurve bow from its holding place as she studied her bow again. Countless times she had studied the same bow over and over again for the five years it had been her faithful companion—a companion that was actually worth her time. The bow was only three feet long made of coffee brown wood that had been laminated to retain its fresh look and smoothness. The outer edge of the bow was grooved around the middle to comfort her bow hand, while a small horizontal groove marked where she nocked her arrows. The bowstring was new, silver and extra-strong in the way she liked it. She found that a stronger string not only last longer, but it also contributed to the speed and piercing power of the arrow at the payoff of slightly longer time to nock the arrow. The disadvantage was easily overcome with repeated speed practices, and she found it interesting to nock and fire an upward of thirty arrows in under a minute. Speedy nocking didn't hinder accuracy and the shorter period of aiming—she needed only a split second to aim, especially if it was a bull's eye target. 

"Still as fresh, aren't you?" She whispered lightly to her bow, and was about to put it back when something caught her attention. She stopped in her track. Something she didn't see before had tattooed itself on the back of her left hand—a glyph. To be specific, it was a black glyph composed of concentric circles with small indescribable runes in the gaps. In the middle of the glyph was a single character, which she wasn't sure of its meaning, even though it bore a striking resemblance to a familiar language character. She had never seen the language before, yet… 

_What are those? I… I almost feel as if I can read them, yet I don't know what it means! It…_

Confused by the glyph, she rubbed it with a hand. She certainly had never seen the glyph before. 

_What is it? Why is it on my hand? It must be some sort of tattoo…_

She was just pondering with her mind blank when a voice called out in not-too-far distance. 

"Norok!" 

Agemo Krimagi swiftly removed his backpack and dropped it on the ground with both katana still concealed. He dashed forward filled with worry, anxiety, and, the same time, relief. Because right in front of the Dragon Ninja, struggling to free himself was Norok. The Elementshifter was definitely in trouble, pumping his wings furiously in air and attempting to keep himself at least ten metres above the ground. Apparently in his Earth form, Norok's scales were now of earthly brown and just as tough as rocks, with chestnut wing membranes. The dragon's lanky limbs were entangled in long, metallic chains. 

"Pull! Pull!" A man shouted rhythmically as three dozen burly men, around six tugging at each of the six chains trapping the fighting dragon, pulled forcefully in unison. Unmistakably, they were trying to pull down the dragon so they could do whatever they planned to do more easily. Norok wasn't the one to give up easily. 

"Norok! Norok!" 

_Ugh! My wounds still haven't healed!_ The ninja's back unleashed a flurry of stabbing pain identical to the daily assault since the tragic destruction of one certain village. His wounds hadn't been better, and seemed to worsen with every passing day. The healing process of zoanthropes seemed to be hindered by something beyond the healing of even a human—and it had been left untreated ever since. Agemo had no medical supply to treat his wounds properly, but he didn't want to encounter another human being. So he just shot himself with penicillin and held the pain as he made the painful journey through the country without the aid of his bestial counterpart. The pain only worsen with every passing second—and he still stubbornly and stupidly refused to reveal himself to another traveller. 

Agemo shouted as he ran toward the dragon. Norok craned his neck and looked at Agemo. He didn't make any sound and continued trying to free himself. Agemo was surprised that Norok wouldn't say anything, but he had to find out the reason behind his friend's act of running away. The ninja quickly dashed past the hunters and buckled his knees to a crouch. Coiling his powerful legs, he sprung up high into air superhumanly and landed on his best friend's back. The dragon didn't seem to notice him as the ninja called out from above. 

"Halt—you are in the direct violation of the Draconian Law." 

The hunters replied with another powerful yank, successfully bringing down the resisting dragon by a metre. The apparent leader of the men shot a threatening look at Agemo. "We are just doing our job. We are Dragon Assassins, and we are simply paid by the village to kill a dragon. I recommend that you leave unless you want to spend your next life with your friend." 

The group leader's threat or the fact they were Dragon Assassins, the mercenary version, didn't impress Agemo. The dragonrider replied as calmly and firmly as he could in hope of reminding them of morality. "Are you aware that dragons are just same as humans in term of the basic right to live?" 

"We are aware of it. After all, we're just tools of killers. You want to punish us? Punish the entire village of five hundreds. Those guys have been starving for months. Beside, the disappearance of a dragon wouldn't bother any humans." 

"I'm warning you, release him." After his final warning was ignored, Agemo leaned over to his only friend's neck and wrapped his arms around the dragon's neck, speaking to the dragon in Draconian. Norok? Can you hear me?> 

Norok didn't reply, far too preoccupied in his task of ripping the chains from the men's grips. 

Norok? Are you okay? It's me! Can you hear me?> 

_Something's definitely wrong with him—I am invisible to him!_

Agemo fearfully looked down at the men straining their bulging, sweaty arms. 

_What am I to do!? What am I to do!?_

He clenched his teeth tightly and a trembling hand reached back toward the hilts of the concealed katana in anticipation of a battle… 

"Stop it here!" A young, mellow female voice said firmly. "Dragon Assassins! You are all under arrest for attempted murder!" 

Necks craned toward the source of the voice and eyes locked on the same slender form. All eyes expected an amateur, and they were right. The voice was from a somewhat-petite girl in her very late teenaged age wearing slightly rugged, white attire that fitted her first impression of a cute girl. A bow, nocked with a sharp arrow with brown-feathered tail, was in her left, gloved hand and the arrowhead was leering passionlessly in the group leader's chest. It also was clearly noticeable that the man's shoulder was a few good inches over her head. Although her hands and eyes trembled out of inexperience, she tried to show none of her nervousness. 

_Oh great! Now someone's going to get hurt because of me!_

"Miss! I beg you to leave here—I have the situation under control!" Agemo shouted at the newcomer with fake nonchalance. 

The group leader of the assassins looked back at his men, who just watched and waited for the course of action of their captain. Even Norok was attracted to the scene. While the heartless mercenaries waited sarcastically, the ninja felt his heart being strapped to a large boulder and threw into a bottomless sea. 

"At least I can be a bit of help, right?" The new arrival tilted her head to a side, but kept the arrow read to penetrate the man's torso. 

A smile creased over the captain's lips. "Little girl—we are acting out of self-defense. The dragon here was trying to destroy a village and had killed several. If we don't kill it now, it'll just destroy the village. We are just hired to protect the them at all cost." 

"Don't lie to me. I heard everything." 

A short moment of awkwardness resulted briefly. The ninja bit his lip, undeciding on his actions. The leader looked at his men again, as if about to signal something. The inexperienced girl waited. A flock of birds flew overhead. 

"May I inquire as to what happened here?" A loud voice boomed through the air. 

Agemo looked at the second newcomer and his jaws dropped. Norok froze fearfully. Even the Dragon Assassins dropped their jaws, but the girl only looked at the newcomer without recognition. The ninja muttered a curse in his heart and prayed for the best scenario case because the newcomer was the last person he expected and the least he wanted to meet in an embarrassing situation. Especially when he and Norok were about to be blamed on by thirty-seven men. Even if the girl was with the dragonbred's side, it was only three people's words against them. Yet at the same time, Agemo was relieved the person had arrived, because of the man's legendary honor and respect. 

It was exactly because of the man's ability that the Draconian War ended in a bloody draw. After the famous Holy Holocaust, he was worshipped for bringing back the fragile state of piece at the heartbreaking price of his own race. 

The Last Angelus—the Angelus Dragonslayer—named Longinus Kizirayzen arrived. 

Longinus stepped into the view, his ocean blue eyes locked at the dragon entangled in the crude contraption of the more primitive division of the clan of Dragon Assassins. He acknowledged the man on the back of the Elementshifter and the Dragon Assassins, but he was not aware of a girl. 

Longinus was a man of deceiving status, looking somewhat average-built even in his famous suit of armor. He wore a full suit of armor of pure silver, gleaming flawlessly in the sunlight seeping through the forest clearing. Clean carapaces overlapped each other flawlessly, enough to reduce the clicking of moving the plate. He wore no visor or headgear, exposing his slim neck. The man looked only in his early twenties with a sharp, triangular face and bright complexion. His azure eyes were large and penetrating like two mirrors seeming able to reflect the thoughts of their target. Nobody, except for fellow Dragonslayers and the most arrogant of all, found it easy to stare into the enchanting and unblinking glare. His hair fitted his platinum armor seamlessly, being of white hair as pure as virgin snow of Icion Mountains. A flowing cloak of blue draped over his back and his hidden, angelic wings. Although he was no taller than the assassins, he looked far more incomparable in term of status. He even seemed to emanate an irresistible aura of Holy power reverberating every soundless step. 

All the Dragon Assassins quickly dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, forgetting about their assassination objective. All of their hearts gleamed in delight and pleasant disbelief to be in the honorable presence of their idol. Norok wasn't aware that the tensions of the chains were completely released, but he froze along with his best friend, afraid to make a single wrong move. Even if the dragon tried, the chains were anchored to reduce the chance of the dragon escaping and taking several Dragon Assassins along with them. Shannon was completely ignored, even by the Dragonslayer. The silent soldier of light locked eyes coldly with Norok. There was a glint of recognition that went unnoticed by Agemo. 

_He's here… I can't believe it… The Angelus Dragonslayer!? I actually get to see him!? Oh Draco… What is he going to do!?_

Agemo's heart was simply tearing out of his chest. He felt the Dragonslayer's stare upon him. His body just froze in light trembling. His skin perspired and he forgot to breathe for a moment. He wanted to move, but he couldn't. He wanted to scream, but he couldn't. He wanted to get away from the dazzling presence of the Angelus as the worthless bug as he was, but he couldn't. His body refused to respond to any of his thoughts. His brain refused to send signals to his body. 

It was his unthinkable nightmare coming true. 

It was just too surreal. 

The formidable one said in a serene, but firm voice. "Who is the culprit?" 

Agemo froze with a ridiculously large lump of uneasiness stuck in his throat. Longinus seemed to be towering indefinitely over him with indefinite, godly power. The man's icy but truthful stare refused to leave its prey. 

_They did it—they are trying to kill Norok simply for their payments!_

Those words, those truthful, simple words Agemo dreadfully wanted to spit out. Those words never made it to his throat. The Dragon Assassins only looked up at him. The Angelus Dragonslayer looked up, his blue gaze piercing through Agemo's mind like an arrow, then looked back at the Dragon Assassins bowing their heads. 

"I see. I sincerely hope you are not lying." He said as a man merely doing his duty. "I will strike down the two dragonbred, but only if they refuse to cooperate." 

The lump in Agemo's throat dispelled, and he forced himself to speak as calmly as he could, "Yes—we will cooperate with you—however—they tried to—." Taking what seemed like an eternity, he pointed a trembling finger at the Dragon Assassins. "—to kill my best friend Norok here!" 

"Shut up your vile tongue, you evil man!" One of them yelled, then apologized to Longinus. "Forgive my rude words, but the dragonbreds you see there are responsible for killing innocent villagers!" 

Agemo froze at the last five words. Thoughts ran though his mind as the horrible images of the aftermath of Kirimagi's recent release vividly presented themselves before his very eyes. His throat just froze, almost clamped down as his heart felt as if it was being squeezed for every single drop of blood within. He lost the sensation of his breathing as his hands, once bloodstained, now dug into his sweaty palms deep enough to draw blood, but the pain went largely unnoticed. 

_They—they knew? They— no. Calm down! They must be lying to get us and Norok killed! But—it's partially—true. W-what am I to do!?_

Agemo did not realized he looked like a criminal caught red-handed to the most powerful fighter of the world. Longinus looked up, as if he had made up his mind. 

Lower to the ground, Norok, if it is your name.> The man supposed to be the ultimate enforcer of justice commanded firmly at Norok with fluent Draconian. Then we can talk. Peacefully and without violence. Please do not force me.> 

Norok did the unthinkable to the witnesses. Rather than landing, the dragon decided to try to flee even though it was obvious to himself that Longinus is very adept with flight as well, and it would not take the Dragonslayer much to bring down the dragon if needed. He snapped out of his trance and snapped his wings outward, pumping it powerfully as he attempted to pull himself free. The anchored chains held well to the ground. The Dragon Assassins found their legs and quickly headed for the chains. 

**_"Stop!"_**

Longinus' voiced boomed through out the air, even though he didn't seem to be even trying to raise his voice. The Dragon Assassins stopped in their paths and looked slowly at their idol. Longinus' gaze was still fixated in the struggling dragon and the ninja trying to calm him down. He made a choice. His right hand pushed away the edge of his blue cloak and the gauntlet fingers wrapped around the silver hilt of the naked sword. A small hook on the side of the guard attached to his belt melt into guard like a drop of water into a large lake, with a very small ripple throughout the blade of liquid silver. Wielding it in one hand, he held it parallel to the ground and gave Norok a final, warning gaze. 

_Oh no! He IS serious now!_ Agemo couldn't be anymore frightened. 

Norok ignored Longinus' warning when all other entities knowing the identity of Longinus would just freeze. The Dragonslayer wasn't impressed by Norok's foolhardy courage. 

It had been decided. 

Longinus took a step forward, another, then another. He buckled his knees to a semi-crouch, ready to leap toward the dragon. The Dragonslayer's knightly armor moved without a single sound, not even the sound of metals rubbing against each other. He let his shrunken wings grow back to applicable size. A pair of large, brilliant archangelic wings unfurled heavenly out from under and sides of the cape. The wings of white feathers of unworldly pureness just stretched out, simply radiating an awe-inspiring aura. The Dragon Assassins watched on, awestruck and speechless. 

The Last Angelus had unfurled his wings of light. With every slightest movement, the wings rippled with pureness and innocence, yet at the same time, it was clearly wings of a holy crusader who had downed countless lives in his search for peace. 

Gracefully, the pair of wings bent. The angelic knight leaped up with his wings outstretched, pumping lightly—just enough to carry Longinus toward Norok. The silver shapeshifting weapon poised to unleash a decapitating strike as he sailed closer and closer. 

Agemo's eyes widened in pure horror. 

_Why… why… He is actually…_

He groped for the word in the fraction of second he had before Longinus reached into the striking range. He remembered the saying that if you are near death, your life would flash before your eyes. 

He now sat in the situation of almost certain death, but his life did not appear before his eyes. 

He just froze as Longinus came into striking range. He heard a female voice yelling urgently, but didn't pay attention to it. He was simply enticed into watching the death of his best friend approaching—fast. 

_…misled._

The Angelus came into striking range. He swung his sword and began a magnificent arc toward Norok's neck. That was when something brown, a brown blur slid into the space just between the sword of Longinus and the neck of Norok. The blade elongated in the middle of the slash simply by stretching—to swipe Agemo's head cleanly off as well. 

Agemo waited for blood to fly, for his best friend's head sailing through air with crimson liquid brutally spewing from the dissected arteries. 

It did not come. It never came. 

Longinus' blade had stopped in its glorious path. 

The blade's iciness bit Agemo's neck, but it had stopped. It had stopped just millimetres not just from the ninja and the dragon's necks, but also a third, uninvited party. 

Agemo looked forward in disbelief at the person who Longinus was also staring. 

It was the brown-haired archer girl that tried to help him just minutes ago. 

Shannon shut her eyes tightly, outstretching her arms and wings in an attempt to catch the Angelus' attention. She tried to stop the man from attacking a pair of innocents—but her arrow was somehow deflected by his radiant aura. She was aware that the man was of powers and status, but she had no single idea of the identity of the angelic swordman. She couldn't bear watching innocent lives dying in the hands of a misled fellow enforcer of law. She just couldn't stand and watch. She waited for the slicing blade, ready to intercept it with her bow. She didn't feel the recoil of weapon clashing, nor a slicing sensation through her neck. 

_What's happening now?_

She slowly opened an eye, then both and stared into the blue eyes. The somewhat silent swordman's silver sword stopped only millimetres from severing her jugular. She noticed the sword and almost let out a relief of sigh in the knowledge that the man possessed extreme control over his sword. Both the dragon and the dark-wearing dragonrider were saved as well. She looked back at the man behind her to find his eyes staring silently at her. They were silent, all of them, the dragon, the angelic knight, the dragonrider, the Dragon Assassins. 

Shannon felt herself blushing under the glare of so many people at one time, then forced the words out of her mouth. 

"…Don't kill them… They… They are the real culprits!" She pointed at the Dragon Assassins crowding below their feet. "They lied to you! I heard their conversation!" 

A curse was muttered somewhere from the mercenaries, but Shannon realized the Angelus was still staring silently and motionlessly into her face. She felt embarrassed by the glare, and slowly pushed the silver sword away with a hand. The elongated sword obligated to her gentle push and shortened itself as its master slowly returned his expression. There was surprise and recognition in his eyes, but he tried to mask it serenely. 

"I will take your words into consideration." The serious man slowly lowered his sword and hooked it to his belt. "We will talk down here. I mean no harm, either." 

His glare fixated on the girl's face, he slowly descended, flapping his angelic wings rhythmically. When he landed, the pair of wings slowly shrank and was concealed under the cloak of blue. Shannon followed him in almost silence, noticing that the dragonrider had resumed his breathing. She landed and let her wings of sharp, dark brown feathers with white lining, fold and shrunk into her back, disappearing completely. She tried to say something to the other person, but was halted by a raised palm. 

"Now I know. Thank you very much for your clarifying—." He turned to the dragon and bowed apologetically. "I am terribly sorry for all my impulsive mistake. Please forgive me for coming close to taking your lives unnecessarily. 

"And Dragon Assassins! How dare you fabricate a lie in front of an enforcer of justice for your own benefit!" 

The voice literally made the Dragon Assassins quiver in fear, and they all dropped to their knees once more, bowing and begging for mercy and forgiveness. Longinus faced the apologetic crowd silently and emotionlessly for a brief moment. He turned away from them and began walking away, saying without looking at them. 

"Very well. I will forgive you this time. I am aware that you are all the newer generation of the Dragon Assassins. However, if you ever, ever take a life unnecessarily, I will not be so lenient to you. Farewell." 

He was about to walk past Shannon when he stopped to look at her confused face. He muttered a word of apology once more and walked to below the dragon still hovering from the ground silently. This time, he left a small sachet on the ground. 

"I hope this will be enough of compensation to you, even though I am fully aware that I have nearly taken your lives and I shall be punished severely." He dropped to a knee and made an apologetic gesture to the dragon. 

Everyone within the vicinity dropped their jaws. 

"Longinus… sir…?" One of them muttered. 

"Silence. They deserve an apology from me just as much as an apology from you! You will leave them alone immediately. Now!" Longinus stood up politely and gracefully, as if he had practiced it for thousands of times to perfection. He shot another gaze at Shannon. 

Why do he keeps looking at me? Who is he—wait! Didn't those assassins called him Longinus—the Angelus Dragonslayer!? The real Longinus Kizirayzen of the Eight Dragonslayers!? 

Before she could rationalize more of her thoughts, Longinus whispered into the air and walked away, down a trail through the forest. The words reached only Shannon, but they words alone made her even more confused and left her unknowing what to think. She only watched in silence and awe as the Dragonslayer made his exit, disappearing into distance. She was the last one to regain her senses, with Longinus' last word repeating though her mind over and over again. 

"Shanyu…" 

_Longinus!? He apologized to me!? He left something and asked for my apology!? Oh Draco! I'm such undeserving of his apology!_

Agemo blinked rapidly, and watched as the Dragon Assassins slowly releasing the chains from Norok's body and began leaving without even bothering packing up, just taking whatever belongs to them. They moved slowly, almost shuffling in shock. All of them avoided eye contacts with him, but Agemo knew their feelings all to well. He watched in silence as the last of the Dragon Assassins left in the opposite direction from Longinus. He blinked. And realized that Norok was really here, and it was really him. 

"Norok!" Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around the dragon's neck and hugged tightly, like a child clinging to a parent. "Where have you been!?" 

…Agemo…> The dragon said, regretfully looking at the humanoid on his back, then looking into distance again. …I'm sorry. I will see you again… But this is just not the place to meet…> 

"Argh! Nor- ok!" The dragonrider's surprised voice snapped Shannon out of her distraught trance. 

She turned around to find the man in navy ninja gi sprawling on the ground on his back, the dragon over him flapping its titanic wings and ascended high into the sky, raising a gentle gush. The ninja held a hand at the distancing dragon as if to grasp it, but the dragon continued spiraling higher upward into the sky before flying off sight. The deserted man let out an unanswered cry for his friend, just holding his hand at the sky silently for a brief moment. 

Shannon ran to the stranger's side and crouched beside him, reaching out to help him sitting up. "Are you okay!?" 

However, the ninja only brushed off her helping hands and began to prop himself up with painful effort, avoiding eye contact with her. However, the sorrow was hard to not detect in his face. His shaking limbs, supporting his body and the backpack, struggled to shift the ninja into a crouch. "…Please. I… Please leave me alone. You… don't want to help me." 

The falcon zoanthrope reached out for him again, only to be rejected again. "But you need help!" 

"I… I don't need help… Thank you for your… concern… But I believe I have to leave now…" 

With a grunt, the man commanded his knees to straighten, standing up with his entire body trembling in pain. With his hands curled into fists, he began taking steps forward, one at a time. A drop of blood dripping from the ninja's body caught Shannon's attention and caused her to run in front of the leaving stranger. She couldn't bear herself to let someone leaving alone injured, even if he was just a stranger. The man seemed to be concealing wounds, but refused to show his agony. What if he dies of loss of blood? She couldn't bear herself to know that he might die out there in the woods by himself. 

"Sorry, mister! But you seriously need medical help—you are injured and you very much can die out there!" 

"So… my… wounds… have reopened… but… you… can't… help… a…" 

He looked up at her and the two's eyes locked for the first time. The link lasted only one second, but what she saw in his eyes was something she had not expected to see in the young man who looked no older than her. Inside the ninja's fast fading eyes, she saw a glint full of traumas and experience, plus a… 

An empty soul. 

It was a broken soul, but the spark seemed so unusual that she felt as if she was both staring into the young ninja's emotional abyss and into a steel wall locking her out. 

His senses fading away regardless of his efforts fighting against the sheer pain, Agemo finally collapsed into her arms. 

-----   
**Author's Note: **Yeah, yeah, I know. I have no excuse for the prolonged wait. -.-;; I've been a procrastinator, and ran into writer's block while working on this chapter. So, this is probably not as good as what you have anticipated, so here's my apology. Anyway, I need to start working on Ch. 12. 


	13. Shining Darkness

**Note: **Okay, okay. You have my permission to shoot me in the face several times. I present you another belated chapter of the Ninth Element! ;; Jeez, I've been on this hiatus for far too long, as you can see from this short chapter. So go ahead, shoot me in the face several times. No, make that several clips if you want to. >>;; 

**Chapter 12: Shining Darkness**

Ah. The sounds of blood splattering, of soft flesh being tore apart, of bones splintering. Those sounds which he adored so much, the very sounds that never ceased failing in soothing him. Now the sounds became the sounds he dreaded so much, essentially the same sounds, yet something told him it was not. He was eight years old again. Once again, he found himself pushing through the thick crowd of screaming adult twice his height and heft. Once again, he searched for a path, reaching out and pushing with his hands. He found himself screaming one name over and over again in an seemingly endless cry. The savage screams of the people around him, those very people who claimed to be civilized by their own standards, trapped within their own barbed wire fences of morality, drowned out his own voice. 

"Kill the waste! Kill the genetic defects! _Kill the abdomination!_" Were the cries of the Techies, the natural people. 

_We are not garbage! We are not wastes!_ He wanted to cry out, but he forced the words down. He must complete his mission. He cannot let them know his origin, not even the slightest hints. Not if he is to save his comrades—especially that particular person! But with every steps he takes, the people around him squeezed him in tightly, to the point where he seemed nearly unable to breathe, but he must restrain himself. He cannot reveal himself yet! Grunting, he shoved harder and deeper into the crowd, to the epicenter. Wedging his fingers between the hips of two bulky people, he squeezed himself into the clearing and saw— 

"Mary!" 

He was back on his bed, fifteen years into the future, in the present. His body was drenched in cold sweat, panting heavily. Without saying anything else, he grabbed a bottle of pills conveniently near the bed and emptied its remaining contents. Then a glass of water went down his throat, coolly lubricating the pills with a pleasant sensation. Finally, something! He slammed the empty, said containers back to their places and stared into the darkness, feeling his rapid breaths. One… Two… Three… Four… Five… There. He was about to swing his legs off the bed to check the time when someone knocked on the door. Great, who is it? What now? I just wake up and conveniently someone drop by at the door! That sonuvabitch. 

"Who is it?" 

"Sir! He's looking for you on the phone!" Oh? That chicken wuss again? What now, already found another one? 

Dismissing the messenger without even seeing him, he reached out a hand and turned on the videophone. A face appeared on the screen, but the person won't see him drenched in sweat. 

"I hope you have a good reason to call me." 

"Honestly I strongly believe that I have located two of the Wielders of Elements. My trustee had notified me of a probability of ninety-nine percents that I may have located the correct whereabouts of them, or their general vicinity in minimum." 

May? This is the fiftieth times that you 'may' know the whereabouts of those elements. And there were only three, even though that wolfboy was a surprise. Agrimson paused momentarily to count the hapless lives mistaken for his targets. 

"It better be not some other useless people, and itt better be good. I lost forty plus men to whoever is that Fire guy, and we have several guard ships destroyed by the Isthmus. I don't care what you say, but I'm damn sure it's the wolf boy." 

"Very well, the locations are being sent to you." A series of light beeps, and the data was received and left untouched for the night. "The targets are of the Fire and Ice elements, but beware, they have an unexpected accomplice." 

"Who?" 

"I cannot find out his identity, but from all the information I gathered, the accomplice is a Fire-based demi-dragon. Apparently the mentor of the Fire." 

Without saying a word of thanks, he hung up and lied down on his bed again, this time staring at the ceiling. The fragments began to fall into place, his faded memories slowly sewing themselves into one incomplete tapestry and restoring their own colors. Just like that, Agrimson went through another sleepless night, his dreams often too filled with blood and horror, and his nightmares beyond the horror of his dreams. 

_Mary…How long had it been..._

_How long had it been…_

Moaning, Agemo began to feel. The first thing he did was not opening his eyes, but rather, he reached for his face with a hand even though it was clearly dark around him. Feeling his forehead, he slowly opened his hefty eyelids. He did not expect to found himself looking up at a ceiling, despite the lack of focus in his eyes. It took about a few seconds for his eyes to focus the blurry images into desirable sharpness. 

_I'm back in my room, I'm just back in my room, and I'm late for work_

Norok would simply fly into the room from the window, in his shrunken form, and splash his face with icy water playfully. The dragon would disappear before Agemo could open his eyes, only to be found eating his newly caught breakfast innocently. Then he'd have to eat a quick fish, or an overcooked meal if he had the time to fire up kitchen without help. He would rush to his office, log in, and work. But that didn't happen. Norok didn't splash icy water in his face rudely. He just woke up by himself, to the sound of silence. His pupils dilated to fit the gloominess. Unmistakably, he was looking up at a ceiling, not at the sky. Upon the realization that he was inside a building, he sat up in surprise, but his back let out a sharp stab. He bit his lips and let out a breath when the flood of pain receded. The spinning sensation did not ebbed away quickly enough and groped to support himself. He realized that his lower body was underneath a blanket. He also realized that while his lower body was still dressed, his tops had been removed and replaced by scant bandages soaked in blood wound around his body. His fingers went numb soon, and he fell back into his bed. 

"Don't move! You're still hurt!" A female voice. Who was it? 

Using an unexpected burst of energy, Agemo instinctively sprung to the other side of the bed and spun around. It was the brown-haired archer girl who he met earlier. He reflexively shrunk from her touch, and stared at her in a manner not unlike a terrified animal. The young woman received his body language and raised her hands slightly, saying nothing. He took the silent moment to breathe lightly, realizing he might have alienated someone who possibly saved his life. 

"Did I scare you?" Agemo said in a perplexed voice, noticing the cracking dryness of his throat. He relaxed his body slightly to ease the pain, but remained cautious. Norok would certainly have teased him for being such unnecessarily tense and, in the dragon's words, paranoid had he been there. Norok… Agemo's thought conjured up the last image of the Elementshifter for a split second before the girl replied with a sigh of relief. 

"Geez, it's okay. I thought you were gonna jump out of your skin…" 

"Sorry…" The Dragon Ninja quickly and purposefully avoided eye contact. 

"How are you feeling now? Better?" The young woman inquired curiously. 

He peeked a glance at her. "…Okay, I guess…" He raised a hand and stroked the nape of his neck, feeling the bandages that had also covered the wound… "Who… did all this?" He looked at his bandaged limbs. 

"Well, the doctor was pretty busy, and all he did was just take a look at the wounds and left some medicine and lots of rolls of bandages." The girl shrugged. "I had to do them myself. I don't know why, but nobody in this place seems to want to help you. I really can't understand it- why wouldn't they help even a dragon zoanthrope?" The last part surprised him, but he pretended to be not even caring. He did not say anything or do anything but studying the gloomy wall on the other side of the room. He sneakily looked at the girl again, who reached out for a glass of water. Somehow, the part about her taking him all the way to this unknown village, getting a doctor, and helping him disinfecting wounds seemed unreal. He would never expect such amount of kindness from a stranger. Ever. Although he knew lots of friendly people, the girl seemed to be… She offered him the glass of water, and Agemo accepted it. 

"…So, what's your name?" He asked drowsily, taking a sip punctuated by a bigger, but formal one. 

"Shannon, Shannon Tsunami, what's your?" 

"Agemo…" A metaphoric dagger was stabbed into his back, but Agemo didn't even flinch at the pain and ignored the bleeding. "…Krimagi." 

"So that's what happened? You don't even know why he did that?" 

"Nope. I knew… I might have prevented it…" Agemo was talking about his runaway friend, painfully repressing the memory of the unfortunate village. The two had been talking over the night without realizing it, each sitting the opposite side of the bed. Certainly, it had been a soulful conversation throughout the night, and he was surprised that she was already in such an advanced, unsupervised work experience and she was younger than he was. Although he soon remembered that he joined the legion for real when he was even younger… 

She would not be able to withstand that, he thought, leaning solemnly against the wall with his arms crossed. Fingers of sunlight were beginning to poke through the window. Dawn had arrived since the incident with the Dragonslayer. Somehow, he still felt so burdened, so weighted down by that incident… So guilty that one as pure, yet as determined as Shannon had to help out a merciless killer… Yet… He couldn't bear being honest, it was just too heavy… 

Shannon nodded in contemplation, then looked at Agemo. "Hey, here's that look again." 

The ninja looked at her. "What?" 

"Just noticing, you've been staring at that wall once in awhile for the whole night. Still thinking about what happened" 

"Oh?" A pause. "I've been thinking about that too much. It's just that… When that person…" The Angelus Dragonslayer, the noble one who fell countless dragons and sacrificed even more of his own to end a bloody conflict. His name, so famed and well known. Longinus. Yet his tongue refused to spit the name out and his lips couldn't move. 

"Longinus? May be it's just some dove zoanthrope on his way to a costume part—I mean, why would a legend like him appear out of nowhere?" Shannon knew it wasn't such case. "Those people lately…" 

Agemo looked at her. What in the world is going on… It's just too strange… "I heard he does have some telepathic powers." He tried to dismiss it at that, although he knew, he knew that it may not be that simple. 

"Yeah, maybe… What are you going to do tomorrow?" 

"Tomorrow?" Agemo had planned to leave as soon as noonday on his search, despite acknowledging his injuries. 

"Yeah, you need to rest if you want to leave. I can tell that you just want to leave as soon as possible. But you can't wander outside like that. Even if you want to find your friend, it'd be no good if you're ill." 

"Are you going to stop me?" 

"I'm not saying that I'm stopping you. I'm suggesting that you get someone to go with you. Do you know anyone nearby?" 

Agemo shook his head, his eyes wandering into distance again… 

"Nobody?" Shannon thought for a moment. "Say, why don't I come with you—at least until you've healed or something?" 

He immediately looked at her and opened his mouth to object. 

"Hey! You said Norok's going south for Sol, right? Well, I happen to be going there as well. Why not? Even if we separate, we'd end up in the same place." 

He closed his mouth. 

How could he? How could he let someone else take care of a worthless piece of trash like he is? He clenched a fist behind his back, trying to not show his frustration at himself. No, he would simply rest for the night, then leave at the daybreak without her notice. As simple that, as he could not afford to ruin another person's future just for himself! It was all too risky for someone like her. Eventually, she would find out about him. It would be all better if they forget about each other, but Agemo found it hard to say it explicitly, or even leave subtle hints for that matter. At least his wounds were beginning to heal, and a few days should be more than enough. He had made up his mind. 

No matter, it was already midnight, and he would be gone in five hours. 

"Oh, sorry… It's midnight already? I better let you rest. I'll be at the room next door if you need me or something." She nodded and patted Agemo on his good shoulder, then began to leave. He watched in silence as she waved goodnight, then exited the room. Agemo realized he had forgotten to say thank you. 

Slowly and silently in the darkness, Agemo gathered his stuff from where Shannon had left them in the room and put on a clean black shirt over his bandaged body, followed by the top piece of his long-sleeved ninja gi, tightening the belts carefully as he fought the pain. His knees were on fire and he paid no attention as he moved slowly in the darkness with complete silence. Every of his steps were calculated and precise, with his eyes carefully scanning in the bleak shadow. Because of his injuries, he took extra time and cautions to not burst open the wounds. He just weakly opened the windows with a pair of shaky hands. He hoped for a breeze but no luck. However, he felt as if he'd forgotten something. Something important, but not for a good reason. What had he forgotten? He had his backpack, his documents, some rations, some self-defense weapons, and… 

_Kimula and Kimita!_

He spun around and stared into the room from the window, his eyes nervously scanning the room for the two katana. It couldn't be. He couldn't have lost them—he saw the brown blanket wrapping the two katana just strapped to the backpack last night, but not it was gone. He slowly put down his backpack and began his search with a leg limping in pain. He was just about to search his bed when Shannon's sleepy voice came through the thin wall separating their rooms. 

"…Don't try to escape, promise me?" A pause. "…Don't worry, I think I have what you're looking for, but why don't you just take a break? And don't even think about sneaking in here…" 

Agemo let out a sigh and sat down heavily on his bed, finally wincing at the pain. He waited to object, but what could he say? What could he do? Go into her room and steal his weapons back like a little thief would? He had committed enough unpunished crimes, and he didn't want it to worsen. Try to persuade her into letting him having the two katana? 

As Norok said, after one mission debriefing gone horribly wrong: "Agemo, no offense, but you just plain sucks when it comes to persuading…" 

He gave up to the pain and collapsed into the bed. 

_Maybe it wouldn't be so bad…_

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**Author's Note:** God. I. Hate. Myself. Okay, that pretty much summed it up for what I thought about this chapter and its lateness. Jeez, I must hold the award for the laziest author right now. Xx;; As you can know, my pre-AP courses are killers, despite the fact that I'm actually doing pretty good. I can't imagine how torturous it would be in AP courses next year, or in post-secondary institute for that matter. Mmm, I'll have another chapter before Friday. 

Don't ask me which Friday, so go ahead and shoot me some more. Oh and, I'd appreciate some title ideas for next chapter, which'll be about the four other charactes in one long chapter. 


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